Joe Flaherty makes paintings that aim at being curious and peculiar before they aim at being representational, affirmative or pleasing. His paintings usually embody the notion of opposites: dissonance/harmony, inside/outside, reveal/conceal, hot/cold, lyrical/atonal.

Joe is largely self-taught, although he has taken some courses and seminars recently and studied studio art in the 1960s at CCNY.