Harvard University, Public Culture Project
December 2026
The Barker Center for the Humanities
12 Quincy Street, Cambridge MA
Panel discussion: December 7, 2026, 6:30 pm
Joshua Meyer paints from sustained observation, often working with a live model over extended periods. His paintings develop through the accumulation of thick layers of oil paint, each successive mark responding to, obscuring, or revising what came before. The resulting surfaces preserve traces of earlier moments of seeing. Different perceptions and possibilities coexist within a single image. Rather than capturing a fixed likeness or instant, the paintings hold the experience of looking over time.
In Eight Approaches, these concerns expand across eight interconnected paintings. The number eight draws on Hanukkah, the Jewish festival of lights, during which light is added incrementally to a ritual lamp called a hanukkiah. Hanukkah brings together two ideas central to the work: light, through which we see and endeavor to understand the world, and time, through which our perceptions change, accumulate, and sometimes contradict one another. The story of Hanukkah is also one of rededication, of finding enough light to move forward through darkness.
The eight paintings enter into a conversation with one another, creating a shifting field of perspectives and possibilities. The spaces between the paintings become as important as the images themselves, suggesting that what we see is always partial, provisional, and subject to revision. Like the shamash, the candle used to kindle the others during Hanukkah, the viewer brings the paintings to life through the act of looking.
For Meyer, Jewish tradition offers a framework for thinking about how we live with questions that cannot be resolved. Eight Approaches asks what it means to see another person, and whether sustained attention can ever bring us closer to knowing them. What might our own traditions and experiences teach us about living with uncertainty and encountering others? Rather than resolving these questions, the work invites us to remain within them.
Presented by Harvard’s Public Culture Project, in partnership with the Presidential Initiative on Interfaith Engagement
A Painting in eight moments, by Joshua Meyer
Oil on board, 40 x 114 inches, 2022
“Joshua Meyer is a magician with paint—building up layers to ultimately reveal images, in a way that encourages the viewer to physically and conceptually approach the work from different perspectives,” says Laura Mandel, Chair of the Council of American Jewish Museums and the executive director of Jewish Arts Collaborative.
About Joshua Meyer
Artist Joshua Meyer is known for his thickly-layered paintings of people, and for a searching, open-ended process. “These aren’t so much portraits as they are depictions of intimacy,” suggests the Boston Globe. Meyer has been recognized with a Pollock-Krasner Foundation Grant, a CJP Arts and Culture Impact Award, The Sustainable Arts Foundation Award, and twice with the Massachusetts Cultural Council’s Painting Fellowship. The Cambridge, Massachusetts artist studied art at Yale University and The Bezalel Academy, and has exhibited in galleries and museums internationally, including Eight Approaches at Boston’s Museum of Fine Arts and the Worcester Art Museum, Tohu vaVohu at Hebrew College, and Becoming at the Yale Slifka Center and NYU Bronfman Center and the retrospective Seek My Face at UCLA’s Dortort Center. Meyer is represented by Rice Polak Gallery in Provincetown, and Dolby Chadwick Gallery in San Francisco. Read more >
Museum of Fine Arts, Boston debut
December 2022
“Eight Approaches” debut in full at the MFA Boston! The paintings are featured as the centerpiece of the Museum’s Chanukah celebration with JArts and CJP. If you read my recent essay “My Guston” you probably already have a sense of what a powerful juxtaposition it is for my work to be hanging in the same museum as Philip Guston’s exhibit. I am thrilled to put these paintings in dialogue with the community and with the artists of the MFA.
“Eight Approaches” at Hebrew College, Boston
January – July 2023
To celebrate the inauguration of the new campus, Hebrew College is featuring artist Joshua Meyer’s eight-painting series “Eight Approaches.” These paintings are displayed alongside his painting “Seek” from the College’s permanent collection, and will be on view through July 2023.
“Commanding visions,” emerge from the midst of Meyer’s thickly layered paint, according to former Hebrew College professor Steven Copeland. “This young master-artist engages fateful questions concerning the character of art and of Judaism, their possibilities, challenges and problems.”
Worcester Art Museum
December 3, 2023–January 7, 2024
“Eight Approaches” will be displayed at the amazing Worcester Art Museum, near the Lancaster Street entrance. I’ll be in amazing company, since a new Rembrandt exhibit has just opened. Plus, I am honored to be in this extraordinary Museum, with Soutine, Giacometti and Guston exhibited in the third floor galleries. My paintings will be displayed throughout the winter at WAM.
Gallery talk: Sunday, December 3 at 12:30.
BYU Museum of Art
October 3, 2024–January 18, 2025
“Eight Approaches” will be featured at the beautiful BYU Museum of Art in Provo, Utah. I will be in Utah for several events, including a public artist talk at the Museum, Thursday, November 21, 11:00 am, in dialogue with curator Maddie Blonquist.
Heller Museum, HUC
April 17–June 25, 2026
Podwal Prize Exhibition
“Eight Approaches” was featured in New York City as part of the Podwal Prize Exhibition and the Elie Wiesel Foundation, curated by Jean Bloch Rosensaft.
Artful | Season 4, episode 4
NOW STREAMING
from BYU-TV
In this 15 minute clip from the television show ArtFul we discuss art making and some of the stories behind “Eight Approaches” Watch the episode >
So grateful for this thorough and thoughtful feature on the front page of the Worcester Telegram (December 6, 2023). Richard Duckett delves into the stories behind my Worcester Art Museum exhibit.
Eight Approaches at the MFA video teaser
Watch the video from the exhibit at the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston. Mini interviews with me and also curator Simona Di Nepi. Or learn more about the JArts curation. Read more >
My Guston
Philip Guston has been hanging around my studio, egging me on. So I did the only thing I could, I painted him out. I am working on a sprawling, eight-panel painting about multiple competing truths, and now the third panel has become my Guston. Read more >
Hebrew College Exhibition
A four-panel excerpt from the work-in-progress was included in the exhibit “Remember, Renew, Reimagine: Hebrew College Centennial Exhibition,” curated by Deborah Feinstein from April 3-June 14, 2022
CJP Arts and Culture Impact Grant
CJP awarded a round of grants to support Greater Boston creatives including Joshua Meyer for projects that include dance, documentary film, visual arts, and original music. Read more >
In Good Faith Podcast
Joshua Meyer sat down with the In Good Faith podcast to discuss his exhibit at the BYU Museum of art.
Mass Cultural Council
For the second time, Joshua Meyer has been recognized in 2022 with the MCC’s individual artist’s grant for painting.
AJS Perspectives: The Art Issue
“Artists on their art” feature, including thoughts on how artwork can cope with competing truths. Read more > | PDF>
Studio Visit with Jarts Live
A virtual studio visit and interview by Laura Mandel of Jewish Arts Collaborative, in which we discuss art, Kafka, time, and Augustine.
15 Bytes, Utah’s Art Magazine
Grateful to Shawn Rossiter of Utah’s 15 Bytes Magazine for coming to see Eight Approaches at the BYU Museum of Art and for the beautifully written piece: “Joshua Meyer’s “Eight Approaches” is a Dialogue with Time, Light, and Creation” Read more >
