Justin Sterling is a contemporary/modern artist who works across a range of mixed media, from sculpture and installations to painting and drawing to music and performance. He is an activist who hopes his work inspires dialogue about social, economic, and political issues, civil disobedience, and what it means to be a citizen. For more about Justin’s work, see his website, justintoart.com.

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Artist’s Statement

Tori Verber Salazar is leading California to a new mindset, turning the status quo upside down after being elected district attorney in San Joaquin County. The dead plant in this work is hemp, and it has been taken over by other new species. For those incarcerated or simply stuck in a familial cycle of delinquency and neglect, this work is a reminder that growth still happens in confined spaces. The past informs the present. What comes next has to be predicated on what was already there—an inequitable and unsustainable racial bigotry based on lies once believed to be core truths regarding the “war on drugs” and the policies that followed.