October 3, 2024–January 18, 2025
Eight Approaches
A Painting in eight moments, by Joshua Meyer
Oil on board, 40 x 100 inches, 2022
“Eight Approaches” is a sequence of eight paintings, hung in a row, but it is really about the spaces in-between the paintings. Consequently, it is about the spaces in-between people and ideas. First I’ll digress, then I’ll try to explain.
My paintings have been circling two themes: light and time. Light is how we see and try to understand. Time is about how we change—questioning whether art can hold multiple, competing truths. I paint people over time by layering thick paint. Each daub holds a memory, and when they overlap, you can see time elapse.
These two themes converge in Chanukah, marking the passing of time with light. The eight paintings look a bit like side-by-side triptych paintings, narrative comic-book panels or film stills, and of course the eight-armed chanukiah. The paintings will almost coalesce into a narrative.
While my themes are universal, seeing them through the prism of Jewish thought will add richness and depth. Context is crucial to this work. “Eight Approaches” begins by using the teachings, rituals and traditions of Chanukah as a lens to think about art and ourselves. The goal, really, is to explore these cross-pollinating ideas, opening up a dialogue. Ideally this giant, almost-but-not-quite chanukiah will open up a dialogue about the diversity and complexity of Jewish identity, community, and tradition.
I hope to engage viewers in a complicated, Rashomon-like story with eight different approaches, veering into abstraction. Art has an ability to hold competing truths, and Judaism loves this complexity too. We love to answer a question with a parable—from Chassidic Tales to Kafka and Midrash—so we can enter and engage. I hope viewers can tell their own stories about it and consider how and why the eight slices are juxtaposed. I hope the paintings will cause the audience to add their own stories, weaving and sorting the coincidences and contradictions.
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.
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 >
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 >
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 >
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 >
AJS Perspectives: The Art Issue
“Artists on their art” feature, including thoughts on how artwork can cope with competing truths. Read more > | PDF>
Mass Cultural Council
For the second time, Joshua Meyer has been recognized in 2022 with the MCC’s individual artist’s grant for painting.
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.