Joshua Hogan Studios

Joshua Hogan was born in Pittsburgh Pennsylvania and received his BA from Carlow College (now Carlow University). While at Carlow, he began a series of paintings inspired by his participation in the program, Semester at Sea. This journey to 15 countries, including Egypt, Vietnam, Turkey and Morocco, laid the foundation for the fluid shapes he creates today; a way to visually communicate his own interactions with people as well as the interactions he observes between people.

With a reality most akin to the Surrealists, Hogan’s painted shapes are a complex web of random exchanges that lie in the unconscious and its disruptive disconnection of signified relations. His paintings are an allegory for the interactions he experiences and the relationships between people in his own personal story. The act of painting requires the letting go of perceived memory in exchange for the opportunity to see something new. Painting is how he interprets the stories running through his mind that affect, form, and reshape his own sense-of-self. Some paintings begin with a personal feeling of disappointment but find resolution as the interaction of shapes find a sense of purpose. In other paintings, Hogan’s shapes can’t find resolution. Patterns interfere and cause delay in the ability to get attention or gain acceptance. The atmospheric shifts of color in his paintings introduce a new spectrum to the visible world and describe what it might look like to see through this world. Hogan embraces the fact that interactions between us are now also defined by the meeting of our projected selves. Although, it is often a troubling experience, he attempts to imagine and capture what it just might look like in this internet of things, all-at-once luminous space and data-space.

In 2001, Hogan opened BoxHeart Gallery in Pittsburgh's Bloomfield neighborhood and began exhibiting fellow emerging and mid-career artists whose artwork exemplifies the diversity and originality of contemporary art. Since then, he has exhibited hundreds of regional, national, and international artists while maintaining his own art studio. Through IATSE 489 Studio Mechanics Union, he also worked as a scenic artist and paint charge on productions such as Marvel's, The Avengers (Feature Film). Hogan’s paintings have shown nationally including exhibitions in the Carnegie Museum of Art, the Westmoreland Museum of Art, and Fallingwater’s Huntington Museum as well as internationally in the Love Art Fair in Toronto, Ontario, Canada. His paintings have appeared in several film productions including Bloodlines (TV Series), The Perks of Being a Wall Flower (Feature Film), and Me, Earl, and the Dying Girl (Feature Film). His paintings have also been exhibited at Art on Paper in New York City, Superfine! Art Fair in Washington DC, Aqua Art Miami Beach, and LA Art Show. Paintings from his series “Higher Than the Sun” and “Light Weight” are on exhibit at The Haen Gallery in Asheville/Brevard North Carolina. His series “Oil & Water” is also on exhibit at Curio Cool.

Hogan’s 2023 exhibit Light Weight at BoxHeart Gallery included artwork by artists that not only inspire him but also have unique interpretations of light and weight in their art. He was honored to exhibit his own paintings alongside artwork by Mary Barensfeld, Clara Fialho, Stephanie Martin, and Belgin Yücelen. Currently, he is in early stages of planning his next exhibit at BoxHeart Gallery, slated for 2026, which will mark the gallery’s 25th anniversary! The milestone year will be a vibrant, year-long celebration, showcasing the finest contemporary artists through a series of exceptional exhibitions.