Hoesy Corona

Hoesy Corona’s work highlights the complex relationship between humans and the environment by focusing on our changing climate and its impact on habitation and migration patterns. Using the archetype of the traveler, who is seen holding suitcases and voyaging through a wide array of landscapes towards a better place, Corona tackles the reality of the human aspect of climate change while celebrating the lushness and vibrancy of flora, bodies of water, and geographic forms, and bringing attention to the multitudinous powers of nature.

Corona creates work across a variety of media spanning installation, performance, and video. He develops otherworldly narratives centering marginalized individuals in society by exploring a process-based practice that investigates what it means to be a queer Latinx immigrant in a place where there are few. He choreographs large scale performances and installations that oftentimes silently confront and delight viewers with some of the most pressing issues of our time. Reoccurring themes of queerness, race/class/gender, nature, isolation, celebration, and the climate crisis are present throughout his work.

“Art allows me to create new ways of seeing, thinking, and connecting. Since the beginning of my studio practice I’ve embraced the term “uncategorized” to describe my multidisciplinary art practice, which keeps me moving swiftly between disciplines.

In my most recent work, I highlight the complex relationship between humans and the environment by focusing on our changing climate and its impact on habitation and migration patterns, while bringing attention to the lush flora and multitudinous powers of nature. For my Climate Immigrants installations, I combine performances for the camera and digital painting collages in large scale prints on fabric to construct immersive sites for contemplation

In the studio I develop fabulated narratives centering marginalized individuals in society in ways that investigate what it means to be a queer Latinx immigrant in a place where there are few. And in the process, I examine the physical and psychological consequences of never seeing yourself reflected anywhere — while simultaneously, celebrating the resiliency and ingenuity of immigrants despite our unique circumstances.”. Hoesy Corona

CLIMATE IMMIGRANTS | MIGRANTES CLIMÁTICOS (2017-Present) is a multimedia installation and performance that considers the plight of climate-induced global migration and its effects on people of color. The performers wear Climate Ponchos which feature vinyl cutout silhouettes that display a long-distance exodus of displaced communities of people. The interactive objects are adorned with images that depict the archetypal traveler, the subjects are portrayed while in unilateral transition, wearing backpacks and hats, carrying suitcases and holding children. The viewer witnesses the silent movements of anonymous persons in context with sound and video which conceptualizes the nuanced experience of migrant travel that is initiated by climate change and environmental injustice. The series expands upon issues of immigration and the climate crisis by creating a framework that implicates everyone and not just a select group, addressing one of the most pressing topics of our time: climate- triggered immigration in relation to US-centric xenophobia. The Climate Immigrants performances have been exhibited at the Smithsonian Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden, Corcoran Gallery of Art, Athens School of Fine Arts, Siren Arts, Adkins Arboretum, The Academy Art Museum, Tephra ICA, and the Smithsonian Arts and Industries Building among others. 

MOTHER DEATH LIFE MAMA | MADRE MUERTE MAMA VIDA (2012-Present), is an ongoing performance and sculptural series that considers our human mortality through the archetype of Mother Nature. The floral works take the form of head pieces that address our fear of the unknown by highlighting our fraught relationship with mother nature. This series stems from the artist’s Mexican cultural background where one's relationship to life and death is part of daily life and rooted in a long lineage of ancestors, which is in stark contrast to the US based relationship to death where people are often detached from the inevitability of death in favor of the mirage of immortality. The large scale performances take the form of processions that activate public spaces where they come upon unsuspecting viewers who were not necessarily seeking out a deliberate encounter with art. The series highlights the artist’s interests in fabulating and remixing mythologies to protest our waged war on nature. 

THE NOBODIES | LOS NADIES (2010-Present), is an ongoing fictional and poetic story documenting the journeys of displaced immigrants and marginalized peoples. Through the use of public performance, sculptural garments, and poetry the artist creates other-worldly experiences for the viewer while questioning the social constructions that govern and objectify personhood. The series revels in the simultaneous visibility and invisibility that the garments bring to the wearer to explore the act of “nobodying.” Audience members are invited to participate in the performance through roles that are complicit in the subjugation of “somebody” into “nobody.”

SCAPEGOATS | CHIVOS EXPIATORIOS  (2012-PRESENT) is a meditative and poetic sculptural exploration of the indoctrination into societal othering as a form of devoted practice. In the series, the deity is the Scapegoat, a figurative representation of blame and shame as internalized acts and subconscious thought processes that sacrifice individuals within a community for their queer existences. In Scapegoats the deity is shown relaxed in a safe environment that re-envisions a triumphant ending for the social castaway.

WHITE CONSTRUCTIONS | CONSTRUCCIONES BLANCAS  (2016-Present) considers the arbitrary and deliberate construction of race in the United States and its negative effects on black and brown people. The series analyzes race as a deliberate social construct created by those in power to subjugate non-white people while critiquing the influential construction and deconstruction of language and its impact on human experiences. The symbolic and imaginary constructs in White Constructions challenge the viewer to reconsider and reconstruct their personal and political relationship to race and how it informs their interactions with others.

BIO. Hoesy Corona (México, 1986)

Is a Latinx queer artist creating uncategorized and multidisciplinary art spanning installation, performance, and sculpture. In the studio, Hoesy’s work highlights the complex relationship between humans and the environment by focusing on our changing climate and its impact on habitation and migration patterns, while bringing attention to the lush flora and multitudinous powers of nature. He develops fabulated narratives centering marginalized individuals in society in large-scale choreographed performances and installations that quietly confront and delight viewers with some of the most pressing issues of our time. Reoccurring themes of queerness, race/class/gender, isolation, celebration, and the climate crisis are present throughout his work.

Corona has exhibited widely in galleries, museums, and public spaces in the United States and internationally, including recent solo exhibitions Climatic Shocks (2023) at Praxis NY in Manhattan, NY; Weathering (2022) at The Kreeger Museum presented by The Nicholson Project in DC; Sunset Moonlight (2021) at The Walters Art Museum in Baltimore, MD; and Alien Nation (2017), at The Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden presented by Transformer in DC. He is the recipient of many honors and awards including the Mellon Foundation’s MAP Fund Grant; the Andy Warhol Foundation’s Grit Fund Grant; and a Ruby’s Artist Grant. He has completed fellowships at Halcyon Arts Lad Fellowship 2017-18 in Washington, DC; a George Kaiser Family Foundation Artist Fellowship 2019 & 2020 in Tulsa, OK; and a Winston Tabb Special Collections Research Center Public Humanities Fellowship 2022-2023 at the Johns Hopkins University's Sheridan Libraries’. Hoesy has been awarded numerous residencies including the Restoring Hope, Restoring Trust Artist in Residence 2023 at Wabash College in Crawfordsville, IN; an Ox-Bow residency in Saugatuck, MI; and a Merriweather District Artist in Residence in Columbia, MD. His work has been reviewed by The Washington Post, Bmore Art Magazine, The Baltimore Sun, Washington City Paper, and The American Scholar among others.