Behind The Brush with Joe Geis
In this edition of Behind the Brush, we sit down with multidisciplinary artist Joe Geis, whose creative path spans graphic design, murals, and sculpture. Guided by curiosity and a willingness to explore it all, his work blends structured geometry with organic flow—balancing precision and spontaneity at every scale. Shaped by experience, collaboration, and a love of learning, Joe’s practice is rooted in staying open, pushing boundaries, and creating work that feels intuitive and true.
Over the years, your work has successfully expanded across a variety of mediums—sculpture, mixed media, and murals. How does it feel to explore these different forms of expression? Are there any standouts?
I used to bartend in college, and I was having a conversation with a regular one night about all of the different creative avenues I wanted to explore in life and how I felt like it was a negative that I didn’t have a specific focus. His response was “or, you can just do all of it…” And that advice has been top of mind for 15 years now.
I started my career as a graphic designer in the music industry, then I started a clothing company with some friends, then I started to pivot to UI/UX design and launched an app with some friends until I realized how unhappy that type of work made me, then I switched to environmental design, which lead me to murals and quitting my in-house job to pursue my own art practice and launch a design studio with a friend of mine.
Sometimes I get bored and feel the desire to switch things up, and other times the work, connections, and projects really dictate any potential pivoting. As much as murals are the main medium of my art practice, I also find joy in staying open to seeing where my work takes me, exploring new mediums, and learning new skillsets and tools to incorporate into my practice.
Your work often blends structured geometry with organic flow. How do you find harmony between precision and spontaneity in your creative process?
My personal art practice is really just one big personal exercise of letting go – something that I’ve always struggled with. While it’s a constant battle with myself to lean into the imperfections, I’ve established a process for myself that allows for both spontaneity and precision – creating the elements through spontaneity, and collaging the elements with a touch of precision.
You’ve collaborated with prominent brands ranging from Pepsi and Heineken to Adobe and Facebook. How do you balance allowing a brand’s voice to come through while still staying true to your own artistic vision?
Each brand collaboration is its own interesting challenge. Some brands are super strict and have an exact idea of what they are looking for when they reach out, and you need to decide if that’s the right balance and partnership for you. Others lean into letting artists take the lead, and you need to be able to deliver based on very little direction or information at all.
Because of my graphic design and in-house background, I have a lot of experience really digging into brands and trying to understand them from the inside out, which gives me an advantage for creative collaborative ideas, other than just merging their color palette with my style. It can certainly be a tug of war sometimes, but finding that middle ground that works for all parties is a lot of fun to solve.
What advice would you give to emerging artists who hope to work on brand collaborations or large-scale public art?
1) The first mural is the hardest. Paint a wall for free. Paint a shed. Paint a fence. Ask your friend’s dad if you can paint the side of his deli. Get a photo of that first mural, and start building your portfolio from there.
2) Who are you as an artist? What’s your voice? What’s your style? Aside from the portfolio, you’ll need to start thinking about these things. Without 1 and 2, brands won’t really know who they are partnering with.
3) If you’re going to collaborate with brands, you’ll need to find a nice healthy balance between being open to feedback you might not agree with, and respectfully standing up for your work and your vision.
4) Take a little test drive and send yourself up high in a boom lift. See how you feel first. Things can get weird up there.
In past conversations, you’ve shared that you previously worked at WeWork as a part of their in-house art and graphics team, creating and adding artwork to their spaces across the world. When you reflect on that experience, what important lessons stand out to you?
I had never painted anything other than my parent’s house shutters before joining WeWork in 2015. I’m still surprised that I was hired, because I was not at all qualified. Everything that I’ve implemented into my own businesses came from that job, and everything that I know about murals – elevations, certifications of insurance, lift licenses, using projectors, assembling scaffolding, how to speak the language of architects, developers, and interior designers, etc. – came from that job, and the global team we built of insanely talented artists.
Outside of your personal work, you must invest a large amount of time running your design studio, ALSO DEPT. How does consistently working on client branding and design work impact your personal art practice?
Because I started my own art practice on the side while I was working full-time at WeWork, it was always meant to be an outlet for me to express my creative ideas without filter or influence. If I wanted to make something, I made it. I didn’t need any client’s or C-level executive’s approval first.
Running ALSO DEPT. with my partner Jeremiah Britton allows me to scratch my creative collaboration itch, while my own art practice allows me to scratch my lock-myself-alone-in-a-room-for-the-weekend itch – two very different ways of creating that I crave equally.
What role does physical location or context—such as the wall, texture, or environment—play in how you design your art?
Every new project presents new challenges, but I feel like I get the best results when I take location, texture, and environment into account prior to beginning a design or layout, and responding to them intentionally with the design.
Where is this mural located and how will passerby interact with it on a daily basis? Are there any architectural moments like doors and windows to incorporate into the design? Is this wall brick, cinderblock, or drywall? All of these questions find themselves somewhere in the design process.
There’s obviously things you can’t plan for – like a bee-hive in your wall, bricks with surprise 2” mortar joints, 100 degree weather, 30 degree weather, or injuring your back and having to get stretchered out and taken out in an ambulance to Jackson Memorial hospital – but you plan for what you can.
What’s a piece or project you’re especially proud of, and why?
While maybe not my favorite piece of all time creatively, the project I’m most proud of is a 13 story tall mural that I painted in Wynwood, Miami last year. In general, it’s an honor to be asked to paint on such a prominent location in a neighborhood that means so much to the street art world, but between swing stage issues, not particularly loving heights, the Miami weather, insurance difficulties, etc., it felt so good to complete such a huge, impactful piece and sign my name 130’ up in the air. That mural will last longer than I will, and that’s pretty sweet.
What sources outside of the art world most influence your artistic vision? Is it music, architecture, travel, etc.?
I can certainly get a lot of influence from going to a gallery show or talking to another muralist, but I think I actually gain more artistic influence from living life and taking breaks from art and design. Creating space between my life and my work always seems to benefit both.
I’ve been drumming since I was 8, and music is what got me into art initially. I used to dig through my dad’s record collection and pull out the albums with my favorite album covers and lay them all out on the floor. And being in punk bands in my teenage years led to me designing t-shirts and designing Geocities websites because we had no money to hire anyone else to design those things for us.
Before retiring, my dad was an architect, and some of my fondest memories are from going to construction sites with him and holding the other end of the tape measure when he needed to get some measurements for one of his projects. Those are my earliest memories of thinking about space, materials, and working with my hands, which all found their way into my art practice later in life.
What’s next for you? Are there new materials, themes, or directions you’re excited to explore in the coming year?
I’ve recently been having some really interesting conversations with a good friend of mine who works in design/build about starting to explore some new ideas in 3D together – CNC, sculpture, 3D printing, etc. Aside from continuing to push my design and mural work, I’d like to intentionally create some time and space for myself to learn some new tools and materials in the 3D world this year.
