Visual Art – Edmonton

As a passionate creative, Josh Harnack relies on visual art to share his singular vision with the world. At age eighteen, before beginning his professional career, Josh was diagnosed with testicular cancer—a revelation that radically altered his perspective and ambition. Having faced his mortality, he dedicated his life after treatment to creating worthwhile, lasting art, and moved from his hometown of Edmonton, Alberta to study film acting at Vancouver Film School. While there, Josh’s cancer returned, this time afflicting his stomach, and later, his lungs. Now, after beating cancer three times and extensively studying human behaviour, Josh has unearthed a personal understanding of humanity that he captures with his ever-evolving series of anthropomorphized animals. Josh’s works, which aim to reveal the animalistic nature that humans suppress, earned him the Strathcona County Artist Development Grant in 2016. The grant funded his latest collection, titled "The Royal Canadian Mammal Police,” consisting of five portraits of iconic Canadian mammals—beaver, moose, grey wolf, grizzly bear, and bighorn sheep—posing proudly in RCMP uniforms. Among his many inspirations, Josh lists Josh Keys, Joel Rea, and the master of surrealism, Salvador Dalí, as his chief influencers.