Joseph Holtzman (b. 1957 Baltimore, MD, lives and works near Chatham, NY) has developed a highly distinctive visual language that draws equally from his expertise in the decorative arts and historic textiles as it does from art history, literature, friends and personal influences. Painting on polished slate or marble, surfaces favored by the artist for its simultaneous ability to absorb and reflect light, Holtzman—who is largely self-taught—approaches his paintings with zeal, creating abstract tableaux with loosely figurative motifs that relish in color, texture and pattern. Often installed in a Gesamtkunstwerk environment, his paintings can be seen as the cumulative result of decades spent thoroughly absorbing an encyclopedic inventory of visual delights. Holtzman was the founder, creative director, and publisher of Nest: A Quarterly of Interiors (1997-2004), the incessantly innovative and widely revered design magazine dedicated to idiosyncratic interiors. In 2004, Holtzman shuttered the magazine to focus full-time on his painting, and in 2014 presented his first solo exhibition at the Berkeley Art Museum and Pacific Film Archive, which traveled to the Hammer Museum at the University of California, Los Angeles. His work has since entered their permanent collections.