About Joshua...

Joshua Coffy is a self-taught artist living and working in San Francisco.  He grew up in a variety of locales from Ohio to New Mexico to Florida and finally California.  Moving from one region to another helped to shape his cultural views of the world as well as inspire him to create art in  unique and varied ways.  Coffy draws inspiration for his mixed media paintings from the natural world, scientific illustrations and his love of animals.  Josh’s work includes many layers of textures including paper patterns, maps, newspaper articles, and acrylic paint.  Much of his work deals with animals and how humans relate to the birds and mammals all around us.  His work is usually a light-hearted and whimsical approach to our ideals about animals.  He has created a sense of symbolism and meaning with many of the images he paints.  Illustrating the conversation between man and beast with a wink and stillness for you to make your own decisions about what the image is saying.  

Joshua shows his work primarily in various galleries in San Francisco, Sacramento, Oakland and the greater Bay Area.  He also has created a few community based murals for events such as NoisePop’s 20th St. Block Party, the SF Marathon and the Treasure Island Music Festival.  Other times he can be found ‘Live Painting’ at several great music venues like Brick & Mortar, The Great American Music Hall, and Public Works.  In 2014, Joshua’s painting ‘Young Family Walking Through It All’ was selected to represent ArtSpan’s SF Open Studios for their Open Studios Guide Book.  ArtSpan prints 20,000 of these guide books that list artists participating in the nation’s oldest and largest open studios program.  In 2015, Joshua's art was picked by a jury to represent ArtSpan in their 'Selections 2015' show at their Inaugural Benefactor Gala.

In his off time Josh enjoys hiking, bird watching, and playing his ukulele.  “It is the best stress reliever ever invented…’ he says about the instrument.  He has recorded an album of mostly original ukulele music and hopes to make more.  Josh also created the Gift Prolific, an ongoing and evolving gifting and painting art project that was exhibited at Burning Man 2012.   Josh lives in San Francisco with his wife Theresa and son Darwin.