About the Artist

James Schaffer is a multidisciplinary artist who received his Bachelor of Fine Arts in Drawing and Painting at the Cleveland Institute of Art. His work challenges traditional understandings of transgender people, offering a counter narrative that advocates for unapologetic self authorship and bodily autonomy. Drawing from his own experiences as trans, Schaffer subtly dismantles cisheteronormative expectations about gender and identity by focusing on the ever-changing and continual process of becoming.

Schaffer’s work has been exhibited both nationally and internationally at places like the Truman Brewery in London, England; the Cleveland Museum of Art’s Transformer Station in Cleveland, OH; Summit Artspace in Akron, OH; and the Spiva Center for the Arts in Joplin, MO. His awards and honors include the LGBTQ+ Heritage Day Rising Leader Award from the LGBT Community Center of Greater Cleveland, the Dan Tranberg Memorial Scholarship for Excellence in the Visual Arts, and People’s Choice Award at the Visual Art Open.

He recently curated a group exhibition at the LGBT Community Center of Greater Cleveland called Everywhere, All at Once, featuring 28 transgender artists.