“I paint from observation, but allow my art the freedom to be spontaneous, which spawns new work. ..The process of making art has helped me emotionally by providing a physical escape. Blending figuration and abstraction with a basis or departure from landscape gives me the space to make emotionally hypnotic gestural works.” - Joe Diggs
The Provincetown Art Association & Museum announces the upcoming solo exhibition, Joe Diggs: Evolving Circles. This mid-career survey will be on view from July 18 to September 7, 2025. It will include a printed catalogue with an essay by the guest curator, Mara Williams, and art writer, Seph Rodney.
Evolving Circles traces the dynamic currents of Diggs's artistic output over the past decade, showcasing Diggs's unique ability to navigate between figuration and abstraction. His work resists easy categorization, shifting effortlessly between representations and striking abstract forms.
At the heart of Diggs’s artistic practice lies a profound connection to his personal history and heritage as an African American artist. His figurative works distill the essence of his family's experiences within Cape Cod's physical, social, and cultural landscape. Through the lens of his artistic vision, Diggs offers poignant reflections on identity and place, inviting viewers to engage with the rich narrative that unfolds in his paintings.
A practicing artist, curator, and educator, Joe Diggs’s art encompasses a range of visual phenomena. In addition to his representational pieces that capture faces, buildings, and landscapes, Diggs's abstract compositions reveal a surprising equilibrium, where disparate marks coalesce into harmonious forms. Curator Mara Williams observes, “His paintings are a tangle of swooping brushstrokes, glancing lines, and dripping swaths of paint. Hovering between action painting, graffiti, and realism, they are evocative compositions in which faces, buildings, or symbols explore, memorialize, and celebrate the family’s place in the social and cultural history of Osterville. Beyond their immediate, visceral impact, the paintings have a way of drawing the viewer into Joe’s world and engaging us visually, mentally, and emotionally in their breathtaking physicality and the nuance of their story.”
In describing his process, Diggs notes, “I paint from observation, but allow my art the freedom to be spontaneous, which spawns new work. ..The process of making art has helped me emotionally by providing a physical escape. Blending figuration and abstraction with a basis or departure from landscape gives me the space to make emotionally hypnotic gestural works.”
Joe Diggs: Evolving Circles opens with a public reception at PAAM, July 18, 2025 6-8 pm
Joe Diggs is represented by Berta Walker Gallery