Brooklyn-based artist Joe Bloch creates mixed-media acrylic paintings that feel built from the city itself, part human, part architecture, part worn street surface. His work blends paint with real-world materials like cardboard, duct tape, labels, stencils, scraps, and industrial textures.

Rather than collage for its own sake, these materials function as structure, armor, panels, plates, patches, mirroring how city walls and infrastructure get layered, taped, painted over, and worn down again. Figures, signage, industrial forms, and urban symbols appear and overlap, blurring the line between portrait and environment.

Bloch’s background in illustration and fine art shows through in his bold linework and graphic control, but the paintings are worked physically, scraped, repainted, cracked, and rebuilt until the surface feels tough, lived-in, and human. His work has been featured in various NYC galleries and art events, connecting his studio practice to the city that shapes it. The result carries grit, vulnerability, humor, and resilience all at once, like something that has survived the city rather than just depicting it.

Private studio visits for serious collectors are available by request through the contact form.