Born almost blind, contemporary glass artist Josh Hershman underwent years of corrective vision therapy to train his visual cortex to comprehend peripheral vision and depth perception. Through this process, he became acutely aware of the curious nature of visual anomalies and light distortions. In these works, he explores the relationship between vision, light, and the photographic process. Using cast and polished glass, he explores the optical aspects of sculpture and probes the mechanics of vision. His art examines the peculiarities of sight that is further manipulated through the filter of a glass lens.
While the traditional film camera has all but disappeared from the contemporary landscape, Josh's work recognizes it as an analog relic from a bygone era as well as a critical historic object. The camera was an evolutionary pivot that ushered us into our current image-obsessed world. By casting vintage cameras in glass, his art highlights the lost physicality of the technology while meditating on the complexity of the photographic image in culture, as well as the invisible “magic” of the optical process. Josh is a working artist living in Oakland, California. He received a BFA from California College of the Arts, and an MFA from Alfred University. He is originally from Boulder, Colorado.
Joshua Hershman is an American born artist dedicated to developing new techniques of glass working that combine optical physics with the fluidity of glass to make his contemporary sculpture. In 2004, he graduated from the craft and design program at Sheridan College in Ontario, Canada. In 2008, he went on to earn a BFA with distinction from the California College of the Arts in Oakland, California, and in 2016 completed his MFA at Alfred University in New York. Joshua’s work has received numerous awards, was included in the 2010 Bullseye e-merge international glass competition, Young Glass 2017, and the 2021 Toyama International Glass Exhibition. His work has been accepted into the permanent collection of the Ebeltoft Museum in Denmark and The National Liberty Museum in Philadelphia. Hershman has been invited to participate in several artist-in-residence programs including; North Lands Creative Glass in Scotland, D&L Art Glass in Colorado, the Appalachian Center for Craft in Tennessee, and completed a residency at Southern Illinois University at Carbondale. Currently, Hershman's work is on display at the Museum of Glass in Tacoma for the nation's first LGBTQ+ glass exhibition, "Transparency". He currently lives half the year in Murano, Italy where he casts monumental glass artworks for contemporary artists, and half the year at his studio in Oakland, California.