Innovative, powerful, and visceral works define the ouevre of Dinorá Justice. A champion of ecofeminism, Justice has dedicated her career to exploring the spiritual power of nature and womanhood across painting, drawing, collage, photography, and video. A core focus of Justice's practice is reflecting on how the subjugation and exploitation of the environment, immigrants, and women have altogether pushed the world to the brink of catastrophe. At the same time, Justice's work posits that it is precisely through those very forces that have traditionally been neglected and disparaged that we may find sources for liberation, inspiration, and healing.
In exploring these concepts, Justice makes use of a variety of materials. In the past, she has utilized everything from marooned pieces of driftwood combined with machinery, to handmade benches crafted with metal, wood, and found objects to comment on systemic destruction and cultural baggage. Since 2014, Justice's practice has centered around hand-marbling areas directly onto canvas. The resulting works are strikingly vivid, with organic swirls and veins that echo the designs of nature itself. Justice uses these works to represent and recreate iconic women figures of the Western canon, from Matisse to Ingres. Justice removes these women them from their originally depicted domestic environments to ones of nature, thereby transforming their place in the world from the secluded to the universal. The underlying message Justice seeks to convey is that when women are liberated and a more just society is realized, the environment will be healed in tandem as we strive toward a world with more equilibrium. In depicting both figure and environment, Justice toes the line between realism and something more abstract, thereby inspiring the viewer to contend with the sheer power of nature--- and the debilitating loss the world will face if it continues to be destroyed.
Born in Rio Grande do Sul, Brazil, Justice received her BFA from The Art Institute of Boston at Lesley University and her MFA from the School of Museum of Fine Arts, Boston. She has exhibited widely across the Boston and Massachusetts area for decades, as well as in New York and the Southeast. She has been the recipient of numerous awards and fellowships, among them the 2022 Massachusetts Cultural Council Painting Fellowship and the 2024 Museum of Fine Arts Boston Solo Exhibition Award. Her work is permanently represented in several collections, including the Yageo Foundation, the Ulrich Museum of Art, the Museum of Fine Arts Boston, the Hood Museum of Art at Dartmouth University, and the Bowdoin College Museum of Art. Justice lives and works in Newton, MA.
