josh brainin (b. 1997) is a filmmaker and artist based between Chicago and NYC. He holds a BA from Amherst College and an MFA at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago in  Film & Video. Through films that blur the line between the fictional and the real, as well as through costume design and performance, josh’s practice investigates questions of youth cultures, Black/mixed racializations, masculine conditionings, and the relationship between art and its institutional settings.

josh’s images and work have appeared in publications and sites such as Frieze, Hyperallergic, Hyperart, Office Magazine, Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago, Artsy, Elephant Magazine, Burnaway, Chicago Reader, and Momus Art. He is the Director of Photography for the Chicago based arts & culture publication Jupiter Magazine. A selection of josh’s work has screened at the following film festivals and art institutions:

  • Ambition & Nurturing Sensibilities: Jupiter Selects, Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago 2026 - Chicago, Illinois

  • Chicago International Film Festival 2025, Chicago History Museum & AMC Newcity 14 - Chicago, Illinois

  • Flux 2025, BAM (Brooklyn Academy of Music) - Brooklyn, New York

  • Mono No Aware Screening 2024, The Museum of Modern Art - New York City, New York

  • Black Harvest Film Festival 2024, Gene Siskel Film Center - Chicago, Illinois

  • Film Diary NYC 2026, Millennium Film Workshop - Brooklyn, NY | Studio Margarita - Vienna, AT

  • Athens International Film and Video Festival 2025, Athena Cinema - Athens, Ohio

  • Onion City Experimental Film Festival 2025, Chicago Filmmakers - Chicago, Illinois

  • Full Spectrum Features “Cyberslime” Touring Anthology 2025, Facets Cinema - Chicago, Illinois | Nitehawk Cinema - Brooklyn, NY

  • josh brainin Selected Works Exhibition 2025, Gure Gallery - Chicago, Illinois

  • Celluloid Now 2025, Gene Siskel Film Center - Chicago, Illinois

EXHIBITIONS:

  • Rituals for Field Transmissions, a solo exhibition by josh brainin, Curated by Youssef Boucetta, Tala Gallery 2026 - Chicago, Illinois

  • Verge Frames Presents, group exhibition, Co-Curated by Tala Gallery, Verge Frames 2026 - Chicago, Illinois

  • Barbara DeGenevieve’s “Subversive Pleasures, Mapping the Problematic”, group exhibition 2024, Site Gallery - Chicago, Illinois