“Room for Five”
30 x 48 x 1.5 in
Acrylic & Mixed Media on canvas
(2026)

“What Stayed Behind”
48 x 60 x 1.5 in
Oil, Acrylic and mixed media on canvas
(2025-2026)

“Do You Remember The Bison?”
40 x 30 x 1.5 inches
acrylic & mixed media on canvas
(2025)

Joshua Jenkins

Joshua Jenkins is a painter and multidisciplinary artist whose work is shaped by the contrasting landscapes of his life—growing up in Poughkeepsie, New York, with frequent exposure to the urban energy of New York City and Philadelphia, alongside formative years spent in rural Kentucky. This duality continues to inform his visual language, where the grit and immediacy of the city intersect with the quiet intensity of the countryside, creating a balance between raw expression and emotional atmosphere.

His primary work is figurative and rooted in Expressionism, drawing inspiration from Georg Baselitz, Jean-Michel Basquiat, George Condo, Ernst Ludwig Kirchner, Pablo Picasso, and Cy Twombly. His figurative works are also influenced by the visual immediacy of street art, Naïve Art, and Pop Art. Through bold color, gestural mark-making, and mixed media processes, Jenkins constructs layered compositions that explore identity, masculinity, vulnerability, and human connection through the lens of his experience as a gay man. The male figure remains central to his practice—often distorted, fragmented, or emotionally charged—as a means of examining both personal and collective experiences of selfhood and belonging.

While figurative painting continues to anchor his work, Jenkins’ practice has gradually expanded into broader interdisciplinary and abstract approaches in recent years. Across painting, collage, and material experimentation, he is increasingly interested in surface, texture, and the accumulation of time. Drawing inspiration from weathered urban environments, natural decay, found materials, and digital manipulation, he embraces spontaneity, imperfection, and chance within the creative process. Industrial textures, layered marks, spills, and erosion become visual records of tension, transformation, and endurance.

Currently based in Louisville, Jenkins continues to seek inspiration from both urban environments and the natural landscapes of the Great Lakes and Appalachian regions. Across all aspects of his practice, his work remains an exploration of contrast—between beauty and deterioration, strength and vulnerability, chaos and intimacy—inviting viewers to uncover the layered emotional narratives embedded within each piece.