Joe Jocas is a DC-based artist that explores people through the marks that they leave — whether literal or figurative — on their environments. His work often focuses on artisans, their craft, their tools, and the spaces in which they exist. His style emphasizes movement and exaggerated figures through layers of dry materials like charcoal, pastels, or colored pencil. Rough, organic mark making is fundamental to his style, meant to celebrate the errors and imperfections that come from hand-made work.

He takes inspiration from the organic marks that humans have always left on their environment — be it cave drawings, wood-carved folk art, or childhood scribbles.