JOSH COUNSEL

MEET THE ARTIST
Josh Counsel

Josh was born in Melbourne Australia in 1972. Both of his parents were professional performers/actors as was his maternal grandmother. It was not long before he followed suit and was in his first show at the age of 4. He studied classical ballet for 7 years (RAD Syllabus) and performed in 2-4 shows per year (roughly) from the age of 4 to18.His plan was to become a stage performer doing musical theatre. At the age of 9 he began learning make up from his parents for his own use for the shows he was doing and soon found it was something he enjoyed and had some degree of skill in. He began playing around making latex masks at the age of 12.
During his teenage years he became weary of performing and found that he preferred smaller character roles that were more interesting and began doing more make up. He stopped performing all together at the age of 18. It was not until his early/mid 20s however that he decided to make make-up his career.
He started being interested in bodypainting around 1999 and was doing pieces by 2000.

Josh moved to the Orlando, Florida in 2001 and continued his career as a make-up artist and bodypainter. He found work at several companies such as Universal Studios and various production houses and artist managements companies. The bodypaint industry in Orlando at the time was fairly small but set to explode. By 2003 many new artists were popping up and bodypaint seemed to be the new flavour of the month. This led to a huge influx of new artists, some of whose motives seem dubious.
Discouraged by the direction the industry was headed Josh moved away from bodypainting choosing to focus more on film and TV work doing prosthetics and FX through his company Toxic Image Studios.

2010 hit and Orlando had established itself as a Mecca for body artists. Artists such as Nick Herrera, Brian & Nick Wolfe, Pashur and FABAIC had secured it's place as a body art hotspot. Josh and his family decided it was time to move on and relocated to 
Salt Lake City, Utah. The bodypaint industry in Utah was fairly young and fledgling. Josh saw this as a chance to re ignite his passion for bodypainting in a fresh new environment bringing with him almost a decade more experience and skill development. Because of his background in Prosthetics Josh is able to produce pieces that are visually puzzling and unique