James Horner (he/him) is a New York based visual artist. His abstract figurative artwork reflects the intimate lives of the LGBTQ+ community. Through visual storytelling, he attempts to promote queer lifestyles and divert discrimination from his people. Influenced by a father who was a psychiatrist, his tales reflect the environmental psychology of the queer community such as social settings and natural environments.  

Trying-on different mediums, Horner focuses on painting, but also explores drawing, printmaking, sculpture and most recently zines. In his revelations, figures are abstracted to the grotesque and overwhelmed by their environments expressing stressors of the world. A strong line guides the figures which can be muscular, grotesque, and humorous. Horner creates in the pop art and graffiti art realm and implores viewers to cherish seemingly mundane moments with loved ones.

During Horner’s M.F.A. program at Lehman College (2011), he focused on abstract and grotesque figurative painting and won the Out Magazine Sleepwear Design Challenge that included characters from one of his works.  

In 2013, he exhibited at the Leslie-Lohman Museum of Art with a group of HIV artists from the Gay Men’s Health Crisis (GMHC). Horner continued exhibiting with the collection at the museum in 2015, 2017, and 2019.   

As his practice developed, he focused more on investigating queer lifestyles and issues. In 2019, he exhibited, “Village,” that questioned male/female personas in a policing gender show at the Amos Eno Gallery, Brooklyn, NY.   

Horner’s boyfriend of 10 years, Chris, committed suicide in 2021. He then focused work around their relationship to help promote queer suicide prevention. LGBTQ+youth are more than four times likely to attempt suicide than their peers (Johns et al., 2019; Johns et al., 2020). He began with sculpture at the Greenwich House Pottery, NYC, 2021, and then continued with large-scale paintings of the couples’ intimate lives. The paintings that enveloped the viewer were exhibited in an Open Studios event at the School of Visual Arts (SVA) residency, 2022.   

He began collaborating with artists from SVA’s after residency course in 2022. Horner exhibited with the group in “Yonder Crush” (2023) at Satchel Projects, New York, NY. And then the cohort launched a public art show “Blink” (2023), starring projections of their artworks in a building’s windows in Chicago seen by about 1.2 million people. For his BLINK showing, he choose the paintings of his life with Chris to promote LGBTQ+ suicide awareness.

Horner regularly donates work to Housing Works, Bailey House and other organizations that help people in need and live with AIDS. In 2023 he donated and exhibited with Visual AIDS (Horner’s in their Artist+ Registry) at Ortuzar Projects, NYC. 

In 2024, Horner will participate in the Atelier Residency at Chateau Bouthonvilleres, Dangeau, France. In 2023, he participated in the Uncool Art Residency, Brooklyn, NY and the DNA Artist Residency, Readymade Gallery, Provincetown, MA; and completed a special program at the Bronx Museum, New York, NY, where he created a zine and a series of prints fixed on queer icons that were added to the museum’s archive.