James Hosking is a visual artist whose work explores underseen communities and archives, particularly of LGBTQ+ people, and principally themes of identity and intimacy. Developed over several years, his Beautiful By Night documentary photo series and film focuses on three older drag performers in San Francisco. The project was featured in numerous national and international publications, including Mother Jones and The Washington Post, and in screenings and exhibitions at Yerba Buena Center for the Arts and the Tenderloin Museum. It was also the focus of a 2022 solo show at the University of Michigan.
He was a 2022-23 HATCH resident at the Chicago Artists Coalition, where he presented pieces from a new archival collage series, “The Personals,” made from LGBTQ+ newspapers and magazines, found photos, and textures. Thematically, these works are inspired by personal ads from the 1960s and ’70s, some of which are reproduced in the compositions. He received a 2023 Illinois Arts Council Individual Artist Support grant and a 2023 DCASE Individual Artist Program grant from the city of Chicago. Pieces from this series have been recently exhibited at the Cleve Carney Museum of Art and Gerber/Hart Library and Archives.
At MacDowell, Hosking focused on further developing “The Personals.”
