Statement/Description “The Personals” is an ongoing collage series by James Hosking that is made from LGBTQ+ archival material from 1966–1981 and inspired by the text of contemporaneous found LGBTQ+ personal ads and their authors. The works explore how the times they lived in, and the media they consumed, shaped their psyches and hopes for connection in the pre-digital era. This publication features excerpts from an extension of “The Personals” series entitled “The Margins.” The pieces in this subset of work also reconfigure found material but use only text, spot illustrations, and shapes culled from personals, articles, publication titles, and ads.
The works in “The Margins” are imagined visual schemas exploring how LGBTQ+ media shaped individual subjectivity. The emphasis on text connects to the importance of language in framing one’s experiences and memories, particularly how important a shared original vocabulary has been to the construction of LGBTQ+ identity. The works are a form of interpretive documentary that grew out of an appreciation for these forgotten parts of LGBTQ+ print and design history.
About the Artist/Author James Hosking is a queer visual artist whose work explores LGBTQ+ communities and archives. His photography and collage pieces have appeared in The New York Times, The Washington Post, The Atlantic, The Economist, and other publications. A former MacDowell Fellow in Visual Arts, he has also held residencies at Latitude and the Chicago Artists Coalition (CAC). He has had solo exhibitions at the University of Michigan, the Evanston Public Library, and Gerber/Hart Library and Archives, and has exhibited in group shows at the Cleve Carney Museum of Art, the Chicago Cultural Center, Yerba Buena Center for the Arts (YBCA), the Tenderloin Museum, and elsewhere. He has received grants from the Illinois Arts Council and the City of Chicago’s Department of Cultural Affairs and Special Events (DCASE).
Details: 5 × 7 in. • 24 pages • Blue and black ink on Sno Cone cover / Whip-Cream interior • Saddle-stitched risograph printed zine • Published by Matiz Press, 2026
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