JAMES HOSKING

I am a Chicago-based visual artist working in photo, film, and collage. I’m a former MacDowell Fellow in visual arts, artist in residence at Latitude, and Art Director of the Chicago Reader. My work has screened internationally and appeared in The New York Times, The Washington Post, Mother Jones, The Economist, The Atlantic, WIRED, The Baffler, and many other publications.

I developed a multimedia project examining identity, aging, and labor among veteran drag performers in San Francisco's Tenderloin neighborhood entitled Beautiful By Night. It included a documentary that I directed, produced, and edited. The project was featured in exhibitions at Yerba Buena Center for the Arts (YBCA) and the Tenderloin Museum, as well as in a solo exhibition at the University of Michigan.

My collage series The Personals is made from LGBTQ+ archival material from 1966-1981 and inspired by the text of found personals. It was developed during a HATCH residency at the Chicago Artists Coalition (CAC). I have received grants from the Illinois Arts Council and the City of Chicago’s Department of Cultural Affairs and Special Events (DCASE) to support the series. Pieces have been featured in group exhibitions at the the Chicago Cultural Center, Cleve Carney Museum of Art, Filter Photo, Gerber/Hart Library & Archives, and other venues, as well as in a solo exhibition at the Evanston Public Library, co-presented with Hive Center for the Book Arts.

I created a group of new works from The Personals for the Pardon Collection, publishers of Collé, which are included in the exhibition Commissioned at the Cannery Village Gallery. I will work on the series during an upcoming residency at Ragdale. I was recently chosen for the sixth iteration of Voices Embodied, an annual exhibition that considers disability in relation to identities. Using my archival research into this subject area, I will create a site-specific installation at The Design Museum of Chicago that will be on view in summer 2026.