Even though his main focus was on painting, Juste worked in a range of different media, from sculpture and design to video-art and film. He obtained a PhD in History of Art from Granada University (2010). In the early 1970s he used basic geometric shapes (cube, prism or grid), cuts and a mirror element that provides his oeuvre from that period with a strong optic component. In the late 1970s he was to replace this element with pictorial gesture, colour and brush-strokes, mainly in his graphic work. In 1982 he was awarded a Ministry of Culture grant and co-founded Ciudad y Diseño. In 1985 he received a grant from the Spanish and North-American Joint Committee for Educational and Cultural Cooperation which enabled him to move to New York. This brought him into contact with North American action painting, which influenced his first works there with a strong lyrical component, along the lines of José Guerrero and Fernando Zóbel. His work would later become more figurative, with constant references to the history of art, music and literature, which bring together subtle meta-artistic messages. In the following decades, he found a balance between referentiality and pictorial gestures, where colour blocks, gesture and figurative elements act in synchronicity.
Juste’s first solo show was at the Caja de Ahorros de Almuñécar (Granada) in 1970 and since then his work has been exhibited at leading Spanish galleries, including the Laguada Gallery and the Palace Gallery in Granada in the 1980s and the Sen Gallery in Madrid since the 1990s; exhibitions outside Spain include venues such as the Tossan-Tossan Gallery (New York, 1985). He has been part of numerous group exhibitions at leading venues such as the Fine Arts Museum of Bilbao (1982); La Villa Cultural Centre (Madrid, 1985); the V Salón de los 16, at the Spanish Contemporary Art Museum (Madrid, 1985); the Ibero-American Museum of Contemporary Art (Badajoz, 1994); the Museo Reina Sofía (Madrid, 2002); and the José Guerrero Centre (Granada, 2003 and 2006).
Even though his main focus was on painting, Juste worked in a range of different media, from sculpture and design to video-art and film. He obtained a PhD in History of Art from Granada University (2010). In the early 1970s he used basic geometric shapes (cube, prism or grid), cuts and a mirror element that provides his oeuvre from that period with a strong optic component. In the late 1970s he was to replace this element with pictorial gesture, colour and brush-strokes, mainly in his graphic work. In 1982 he was awarded a Ministry of Culture grant and co-founded Ciudad y Diseño. In 1985 he received a grant from the Spanish and North-American Joint Committee for Educational and Cultural Cooperation which enabled him to move to New York. This brought him into contact with North American action painting, which influenced his first works there with a strong lyrical component, along the lines of José Guerrero and Fernando Zóbel. His work would later become more figurative, with constant references to the history of art, music and literature, which bring together subtle meta-artistic messages. In the following decades, he found a balance between referentiality and pictorial gestures, where colour blocks, gesture and figurative elements act in synchronicity.
Juste’s first solo show was at the Caja de Ahorros de Almuñécar (Granada) in 1970 and since then his work has been exhibited at leading Spanish galleries, including the Laguada Gallery and the Palace Gallery in Granada in the 1980s and the Sen Gallery in Madrid since the 1990s; exhibitions outside Spain include venues such as the Tossan-Tossan Gallery (New York, 1985). He has been part of numerous group exhibitions at leading venues such as the Fine Arts Museum of Bilbao (1982); La Villa Cultural Centre (Madrid, 1985); the V Salón de los 16, at the Spanish Contemporary Art Museum (Madrid, 1985); the Ibero-American Museum of Contemporary Art (Badajoz, 1994); the Museo Reina Sofía (Madrid, 2002); and the José Guerrero Centre (Granada, 2003 and 2006).