Joe Wardwell is currently a Professor of Painting at Brandeis University (Waltham, MA) and is the founder the Brandeis-in-Siena program. He received a Bachelor of Arts in Art History, and a Bachelor of Fine Arts in Painting from the University of Washington (Seattle, WA). He received a Master of Fine Arts in Painting from Boston University (Boston, MA).

Currently on view, Wardwell has a large-scale wall drawing, “Hello America: 40 Hits from the 50 States,” commissioned for the renovation of building 6 at MASS MoCA in North Adams, MA. In 2022, he completed his first large scale public art project for the Boston Public Library, Roxbury Branch. Wardwell has also completed large scale installations for the Institute of Contemporary Art Boston, the Ogunquit Museum of American Art, citizenM Hotels, Facebook Inc., and the Children’s Hospital of the King’s Daughters in Norfolk, VA and the Cape Cod Museum of Art.

His paintings and drawings have been exhibited at the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, the DeCordova Sculpture Park and Museum (Lincoln, MA), the Rollins Museum and the Institute of Contemporary Art Boston, and Wardwell’s work is in the permanent collection of each. 

Wardwell has been a recipient of the Massachusetts Cultural Council Grant for Painting and was awarded the Distinguished Alumni Award from the School of Creative Arts at Boston University.

In addition to numerous group exhibitions throughout the region, Wardwell has held solo exhibitions in New York, New Haven, Boston, Seattle, and Montreal. His work has been reviewed by Art Forum, Art in America, the Boston Globe, The Seattle Times, Boston Magazine, as well as many other publications. Wardwell lives with his family in the Jamaica Plain neighborhood of Boston, his studio is in Dorchester, MA, and is represented by the LaMontagne Gallery.