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Joshua Hogan

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Joshua Hogan is a Pittsburgh-based contemporary painter. His fluid, recurring shapes originated during Semester at Sea, when travel through 15 countries, including Egypt, Vietnam, Turkey, and Morocco, gave him a way to visually interpret his own interactions with people as well as the interactions he observed between others.

Hogan calls these shapes “wayfarers.” They gather, separate, overlap, interrupt, and move through his paintings, creating a network of relationships. “The shapes in my paintings interact and communicate with each other. I intend for these shapes to illuminate how every choice and action we make affects other people,” Hogan explains.

From his third-story studio above BoxHeart Gallery, Hogan has another vantage point. Three large windows fill his studio with changing light while the street below provides a constant passage of people, traffic, and activity. Hogan describes his painting process as “painting the air.” He begins with light and atmosphere, building space through layers of color before allowing the shapes to surface within it.

The space between Hogan’s wayfarers is as important as the shapes themselves. Light travels through it, color diffuses across it, and distance develops without conventional perspective. His shapes are defined by the luminous space that separates and connects them. What began as a visual language for interactions between people has increasingly become an investigation of the space where those interactions occur.

Artists including J.M.W. Turner, Arshile Gorky, and Claude Monet have influenced Hogan’s interest in atmosphere, abstraction, color, and light. Rather than depicting a recognizable landscape, Hogan's paintings move between abstraction and observation, making visible relationships and exchanges that ordinarily have no physical form.

Hogan received his BA from Carlow College (now Carlow University). In 2001, he co-founded BoxHeart Gallery and has continued his studio work while exhibiting hundreds of regional, national, and international artists. His paintings have been exhibited nationally and internationally, including exhibitions at the Carnegie Museum of Art and the Westmoreland Museum of American Art, as well as Art on Paper in New York City, Aqua Art Miami Beach, LA Art Show, and Love Art Toronto. His artwork has also appeared in film productions including The Perks of Being a Wallflower and Me and Earl and the Dying Girl. Hogan is represented by The Haen Gallery in Asheville/Brevard, North Carolina, BoxHeart Gallery in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, and JL Shorr Gallery in Zelienople, Pennsylvania.

portfolio.jpg  View Josh Hogan's artwork in the 2026 exhibition, Piecing It Together.

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