A native of Dayton, Ohio, Joel David Holsinger has been painting and drawing prolifically since early childhood. The encouragement of his parents and family to participate in local and regional art contests and art classes as a youth formed some of his earliest art influences, along with frequent visits to the Dayton Art Institute. Joel remembers drawing pictures for hours and hours on end as a child, many of these drawings he still has.
Motivated by exceptional instructors and inborn creativity, Joel’s youthful art education instilled in him a strong desire to pursue his calling as a fine artist. A Scholastic Arts award-winning portfolio finalist, Joel graduated in 1996 with a degree in Fine Art, studying graphic design and painting at Miami University (of Oxford, Ohio) on a full-tuition scholarship awarded annually by the Gibson Greetings Foundation. Joel went on to become a graphic designer for a Campbell-Hausfeld and later for Ohio’s Cedarville University; and he also taught high school art for a year.
During his stint as a graphic designer, Joel realized that he enjoyed painting much more than he enjoyed doing graphic design work, and soon after, moved to Phoenix, Arizona, where he began painting full-time as a fine artist.
Beneath the surface, the focus of his work is highly philosophical and spiritual. His paintings and drawings, whether abstract or traditional, are inspired by principles of timeless truth, beauty, wisdom and love. Many of Joel’s subjects are drawn from landscapes, architecture, classical literature, music and world history, and synthesized with contemporary influences. Viewing the world abstractly is the result of a punctuated process that developed out of the study of traditional painting combined with a variety of life experiences, such as visiting art museums, galleries and studios that display collections of contemporary work; learning from colleagues and art instructors; teaching artistic principles and elements; developing a distinctive artistic vocabulary; and most of all, by observing multifarious abstractions in God’s creation.
Joel’s creative process combines a balance of planning and spontaneity. He often sketches out an idea and plans a preliminary composition, but responds spontaneously to the process of painting and the flow of new ideas, often making changes that deviate significantly from the initial idea. Joel likes demonstrating through his art and in conversation the often overlooked relationships between the “real” and the “abstract”; in art. He continues to delight in studying, learning, exploring and discovering new insights as an artist, always looking forward to his next painting.
When he’s not painting, Joel enjoys his elective time with his closely-knit family and friends, reading, studying, writing, sketching, traveling, playing the piano, and spending time hiking and enjoying the Great Outdoors. All of these experiences are interwoven into his work. Joel also speaks fluent Spanish, and enjoys traveling and participating in service/mission projects, activities which motivated him early on to intensively study the Spanish language. His wife is from Mexico, so both English and Spanish are spoken in his home.