For Curators
- Process-driven abstraction Schwartz works intuitively and without preparatory drawings, building each painting through gesture, accumulation, and resistance. Structure emerges from pressure rather than design.
- Psychological hieroglyphics The paintings function as a painted script of internal states—marks that operate as both record and architecture.
- Velocity Momentum is preserved as meaning; gestures are made under pressure and resolved without overworking.
- Restraint The work is governed by deliberate stopping points, preventing excess and allowing intensity to remain legible.
Works shown represent a locked selection for 2026 exhibitions.
Selected Works
About
Joshua Michael Schwartz (b. 1989, Oklahoma) is a Boston-based contemporary painter working in large-scale abstraction. After maintaining art as a personal practice from an early age through college, his studio work consolidated rapidly in 2025, when he produced more than sixty large-format paintings and numerous smaller works, forming the foundation of his current practice.
Schwartz refers to this body of work as psychological hieroglyphics, describing paintings that register internal pressure through structured, rhythmic gesture. He works as a data analyst and has formal training in mathematics and economics, which informs the architectural logic of his compositions. Born in Oklahoma, he has been based in Boston since 2017 and has also lived and worked in Washington, DC and Pittsburgh.