ABOUT

Josh Chefitz (b. 1977) is a Cleveland-based mixed media artist working in handmade paper from the Morgan Conservatory. His work is rooted in how he drew as a child and how he continues to draw today, as well as in the imagery he absorbed growing up. A reproduction of Joan Miró’s Woman and Birds in Front of the Sun that hung in his home gave rise to a recurring set of rounded forms he calls his “comfort shapes.” The beams and ladders of his Nintendo Game & Watch handhelds, along with the grids and quadrants of algebra, shaped the line work that runs through his practice.

Chefitz describes himself as an incidental collage artist. He says: “I often cut up my work. The goal is not to, but when a piece doesn’t connect, it gets cut up, and those remnants can find their way into something new. Some end up in different pieces entirely, scattered but from the same family.”

A self-taught artist, Chefitz has shown his work throughout Northeast Ohio, as well as at Lindsay Gallery in Columbus and with the Brooklyn Waterfront Artists Coalition. He is a 2026 recipient of an Artist Opportunities grant from the Ohio Arts Council. He is also the founder of ActLoCLE, an initiative creating community and visibility for makers in the region, and serves as Exhibition Director of its Annual Online Juried Art Exhibition.