Josh Garber

JOSH GARBER

Josh Garber is an sculptor based in Chicago, IL whose work explores the expressive potential of industrial materials and the tactile presence of sculptural form. Known for his intricate constructions made from aluminum rods and hardware, Garber transforms utilitarian elements into dynamic objects that pulse with movement and sensuality. His sculptures often draw from mapping systems, geographic coordinates, and repeated gestures, yet the resulting forms feel organic, bodily, and quietly emotive, revealing the ways material can bridge the mechanical and the human.

Garber approaches sculpture as a study of touch and structure. Working through a slow, accumulative process, he bends, joins, and layers thousands of components into dense surfaces that generate self organizing patterns. These tactile skins evoke natural terrains, cellular systems, or shifting topographies, inviting viewers to experience the work both visually and physically. Through the transformation of nuts, bolts, screws, and metal bar into whimsical and expansive landscapes, Garber reframes the industrial world as a space of play, intimacy, and imaginative potential. His practice merges the logic of data and construction with the poetry of sensation, creating objects that feel at once grounded and fantastical.

Garber earned his MFA from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago and his BFA from Alfred University. His work has been exhibited throughout the United States and internationally, including presentations at Zolla/Lieberman Gallery in Chicago, the Scottsdale Museum of Contemporary Art, the Muskegon Museum of Art, and galleries in Toronto, New York, and Berlin.