Artist Statement

While on Esselen tribal land, where the ocean, a waterfall, and a hot spring meet, I experienced a moment that reshaped my practice. At sunrise on the winter solstice, during a movement ritual, I sensed presences moving through the landscape. Bodies of light seemed to circle in the morning air, their forms suggested by shifting shadows, mirrors, and the scent of pine.

The images from that morning continue to guide my work.

I approach sculpture through an embodied process, allowing intuition, memory, and research into place and history to guide the materials I gather and the forms I shape.

I engage ancestry not as distant history, but as a living relational force shaping what we inherit and what we carry forward.

The Descendant Series grows from this practice. Using reclaimed materials, these large-scale sculptures translate relationships between memory, material, and lineage into contemporary form.


About

Joshua (Josh) Sin, a Toronto-born, Portland-based multidisciplinary artist, draws on his lifelong training as a world champion gymnast, concert pianist, shoemaker, and industrial designer to shape a visual language of precision, repetition, and technique.

His work interrogates consumer culture, technological faith, and nationalist narratives by fusing ancestral craft with speculative futurism, transforming discarded goods and textiles into sacred artifacts that reframe waste as a site of renewal. Rooted in cycles of deconstruction and reconstruction, Sin’s practice explores identity, ancestry, and transformation, drawing from both ancient Eastern traditions and digital technologies.

Through circularity, both as a sustainable model and a metaphor for continual evolution, he bridges past and present, East and West, reflecting on how we build, break, and rebuild, materially and spiritually, toward a more expansive and inclusive future.

Selected Exhibitions

2026

  • World Within a World, Lan Su Chinese Garden, Portland, OR (forthcoming) 
  • Lan Su Chinese Garden, Artist Residency, Portland, OR (forthcoming) 
  • GMA Architects Residency, Portland, OR
  • Nike Air Milano Jacket and Team USA uniform, 2026 Olympics, Milan, Italy.

2025

  • Warp Speed, Center for Creative Arts & Culture at PNCA, Portland, OR
  • Just Playin' Around, Jordan Schnitzer Museum of Art at PSU, Portland, OR 
  • Environmental Learning Center Gallery, Recology, San Francisco, CA

2024

  • Coming Home, Revitalizing Old Town, 220 Gallery, Portland, OR 
  • The Dump Show, Hosfelt Gallery, San Francisco, California
  • SATIRE, Shaking The Tree Theatre, Portland, OR 
  • Cuts Across: Artists Respond to Lived Intersection, Carnations Contemporary
  • We Wrote This With You in Mind, Inside the Box Gallery, Portland, OR

2023

  • Regenerations, Portland Chinatown Museum, Portland, OR
  • Ode to San Francisco, Four Chicken Gallery, San Francisco, CA
  • Glean, Recology, Parallax Art Center, Portland, OR

2022

  • Metaverse Biennale SIKKA Art & Design Festival, Dubai, United Arab Emirates

Publications, Talks, & More

2025

  • Please, Play with the Art, PDX Monthly
  • Just Play' Around: Seriously? Of Course, Oregon Artswatch
  • Fresh Connections - JSMA Art Talk


2024

  • Silver Medalist - Best Visual Arts for the Global Asian Creative Awards
  • Anti-Fashion Fashion Show Critiques Consumer Culture - Willamette Weekly
  • Simultaneity as Design: Everyday Pakistan and Beyond, Beaconhouse National School of Visual Arts and Design, Lahore, Pakistan

2023

  • Sustainable Fashion Lecture, Portland State University, Portland OR
  • Asian American Art Talk, Portland Chinatown Museum, Portland, OR
  • Shed Panel Art Talk - The ReBuilding Center, Portland, OR

2022

  • Divide Magazine, Vol 4
  • Zerowaste Workshop - Danielle Elsener, Portland, OR 

2016 Shoemaking Apprenticeship - Nassier Vies Studio, Toronto, ON 

2015 Titanium Grand Prix winner, Cannes, France

2015 Shoemaking Workshop - School School, Port Townsend, WA

2014 Leather Manipulation - Chicago School of Shoemaking, Chicago, IL 

2005 Gymnastic World Championships, Eindhoven, Netherland

2003 Gymnastic World Championship, Hannover, Germany

Hello!

I'd love to hear from you. Send me a note, and I'll write you back!

© 2026 Joshua Sin

All Rights Reserved