James Bartolacci (b. Easton, PA 1988) is an artist based in New York City and London. He received his MFA in Painting and Printmaking from the Yale School of Art in 2020. In 2024, he was awarded the Elizabeth Greenshields Foundation Grant. Drawing from personal experiences of queer nightlife in New York and other cities, his artwork celebrates the catharsis of the scene while also embracing its hangover. He has exhibited in group and solo exhibitions at Galerie Perrotin, New York; Anat Ebgi, Los Angeles; TJ Boulting, London; and Taymour Grahne Projects in London. His work has been reviewed in Frieze Magazine and California Art Review among others.
Queer Art: From Canvas to the Club and the Spaces Between by Gemma Rolls-Bentley
Frieze Magazine James Bartolacci’s Intimate Journey from Nightclub to After Party by Kevin Brazil
Metal Magazine Honouring the Queer Nightlife of NYC by Emma Smit
The Guardian The Gaze review by Laura Cumming
The Gaze Curator and Artist Statement by Louis Wise
Artsy 7 Artists on the Resilience of Depicting Queer Intimacy in Public by Osman Can Yerebakan
Dazed These paintings pay tribute to the queer nightlife of NYC by Emily Dinsdale
Something Curated Interview: Painter James Bartolacci On Queer Nightlife As An Art Form
Observer How 2020 Changed the Art of Three Emerging MFA Grads by Osman Can Yerebakan