In a world of chaos, artist Joe Diggs speaks through his artwork in the hopes of affecting positive change.

Osterville artist Joe Diggs’ brilliant art is defined by color. Diggs lives in Osterville on land that has been in his family for three generations, dating back to the 1800s. There are six family cottages on the property, five of which Diggs rents. The other is his studio and home, a graceful three-story structure. The studio is filled with his paintings, scores and scores of them—on easels, on walls, some stacked against walls, and some on the floor, some finished, oil and acrylic works in progress, some as large as ten feet long and eight feet high, other paintings eight and a half to eleven inches. “If I want to paint something intimate, I paint small, but if I want the viewer to put themselves in the painting, I want to be bold, and paint large” he says.  

One has a sense of creative genius when walking through Diggs’ studio, surrounded by and immersed in his artwork. Diggs credits Barnstable High School and his professors at Southeastern Massachusetts University, now UMass Dartmouth, with nurturing his artistic beginnings. His family inspires many of his paintings—his father George, his mother, Deborah, his younger brother, Kip (a retired professional boxer and Massachusetts State Representative since 2021), an older sister, Sharon, and Diggs’ older brother, Craig, a talented artist who inspired his brother to paint. Tragically, Craig was hit and killed by a drunk driver at 19. “You never get over it,” says Diggs. “You just learn how to deal with it. My art helps me work through that.” Many of Diggs’ paintings grapple with the heartbreak of loss and...