Nicholas J Waguespack

Nicholas Waguespack (they/he) was born and raised in southern Louisiana and currently lives in Chicago, IL. They hold a BA in Art + Design from Nova Southeastern University (NSU) in Fort Lauderdale, FL. Waguespack earned their MFA in Studio Art from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago concentrating in Printmedia and Performance. 

Waguespack’s interdisciplinary practice explores identity, family, and queerness through printmaking, performance, and clowning. Raised in a conservative Louisiana town as the child of a Catholic deacon, their work examines tensions between personal history and self-determined identity. They transform ephemeral moments, such as the application of clown makeup, into layered, tactile expressions that blur the boundaries between personal narrative and collective experience.

By merging traditional and experimental approaches, Waguespack examines queerness as a site of resistance, reinvention, and celebration. Whether printing family portraits onto makeup wipes to explore intimacy and transformation, interviewing their parents about queerness while turning them into clowns, or orchestrating performances that challenge spectatorship, their work fosters spaces where identity can be questioned, performed, and reimagined.