JOE DIGGS | The Bank Art Gallery | Shape of Memory Exhibition
Oct 17 - Dec 20, 2025
PAINTING NOTES
All images are located here:
1. I Dare You, 2025,
oil on canvas, 50 x 60,
Diggs’ portrait of his older brother, Craig Wayne Diggs, “I Dare You “depicts him holding two sections of watermelon, one in each hand as if weighing the slices, deciding which one to devour and which to share. Craig died in an accident at the age of 19, and this painting captures a summer memory of the artist’s adored brother.
2. Independence Day on the Vineyard, 2015,
acrylic and oil on canvas, 60 X 50
This painting documents a visit to Martha’s Vineyard on the Independence Day holiday by the artist, a friend and the friend’s young grandson. The boy is partly hidden, protected by the older men from the gruesome aspects of the nation’s history, including what are meant to be chalk-outlined parts of James Byrd Jr’s body, indicated on the right quadrant of the canvas. Byrd Jr. was dragged to death along a three-mile stretch of asphalt road in Jasper, Texas, in 1998.
3. Golden Pond 2023
oil on canvas 51 x 61
Joe Diggs still lives and works next to Micha’s Pond, a serene body of water that has served as inspiration and backdrop for his life and work since his early childhood. By contemplating this body of water that has been part of his family for three generations, Diggs brings the past into the present to try to gain an idea of what the future might become
4. Race Relations, 2015
36 x 20.5 oil on canvas
This portrait of the artist’s father, Sergeant First Class George Ralph Diggs, in “Race Relations” depicts the elder Diggs, who began his military career in the Army as an infantryman and later became a drill sergeant and a recruiter. The actual pin his dad wore, “Diggs Race Relations”, is affixed to the painting, while the father gazes out with a resigned expression. The portrait captures a moment in the historical development and experience with race in America.
5. Baller: Red, Black, Green, 2017
20” x 16”, mixed media
6. Chalk Lined Baller
The “baller” series of paintings documents the era of the Negro Leagues, which flourished from the 1920s to the late 40s. The players and their fans built a culture around the games that celebrated African-American food, fashion, and vitality. Weekly games were carnivals where the audience dressed up to cheer their team. With the integration of the Negro Leagues into the Major Leagues in 1947, this unique lifestyle died out. Diggs represents this death with chalk lines and X-ray films overlaid on the likenesses of these lost cultural icons.
ABOUT JOE DIGGS
Joseph (Joe) Diggs is a practicing artist, curator, and educator with generational
roots on Cape Cod. Although stylistically diverse, Diggs’ art is closely united by a celebration of texture, color, and form. The subjects of his paintings range from realist depictions of African American history and personal family memories to gestural plein-air landscapes and geometric abstractions, while the scale of his artworks spans from wall-sized murals to intimate works on cardboard. Joe Diggs’ paintings are in numerous private and museum collections, including the Peabody Museum, Provincetown Art Association and Museum, the Zion Union Museum, and the Cape Cod Art Museum.
Born to a military family in Croix Chapeau, France, Diggs moved as a child to the family compound in Osterville, MA. After graduating from Southeastern Massachusetts University with a B.A. in fine art painting, Joe Diggs traveled the world as a flight attendant, incorporating global sights, sounds, colors, and cultures into his art practice. He returned to Osterville in 2008 and, in 2015, earned his M.F.A. at Massachusetts College of Art and Design.
As an art educator, Joe Diggs teaches at the Cotuit Center for the Arts, Castle Hill Arts Center in Wellfleet, and the Fine Arts Work Center in Provincetown. He taught Foundations in Art and Expression to incarcerated youth at the Department of Youth Services in Brewster from 2015 through 2023. He has curated exhibitions for the Cotuit Center for the Arts, the Zion Union Museum in Hyannis, and the Cape Cod Museum of Fine Arts in Dennis. Joe Diggs is represented by the Berta Walker Gallery in Provincetown, MA.
Recent solo exhibitions include: Evolving Circles, curated by Mara Williams, Provincetown Art Association & Museum (catalogue essay by Seph Rodney), Joe Diggs | Worlds Just Glimpsed, Berta Walker Gallery, Provincetown, MA (2025); Musical Muse, Holderness School, Holderness, NH, (2025), Joe Diggs: Soulscapes, Berta Walker Gallery, Provincetown, MA (2021), Proud 2 B American, curated by Mara Williams, Brattleboro Museum, Brattleboro VT (2018), Proud 2 B American | Joe Diggs at The Guyer Barn, Hyannis, MA (2021), Exposed at Cotuit Center for the Arts, Cotuit, MA, (2009).
Selected Group Exhibitions include: Corrugated: Works on Cardboard, curated by Jen Dragon, Opus 40, Saugerties, NY (2025), The Shape of Memory, curated by Shirley Noto, Bank Art Gallery, Newburgh, NY, United We Stand, with Erna Partoll, Berta Walker Gallery, Provincetown, MA (2023), YELLOW CHAIR & FRIENDS, M. David & Co. Wellfleet, MA (2021), Abstracted Lineage, Berta Walker Gallery (2021), Lost Cat curated by Betty Carroll Fuller, Cape Cod Museum of Art, Dennis, MA (2016), Othering, Lichtenstein Center for the Arts, Biennial Juried Show, Pittsfield, MA (2016).