Cob Gallery is proud to present Portrait of an Artist (Pool with Two Figures), a group exhibition of male artists that explores intimacy, identity, and relationships within the domestic sphere. The artists featured respectively across their practice engage with the human figure—sometimes present, sometimes absent—to activate interior spaces where themes of sexuality, queerness, solitude, and ritual might unfold. Central to the exhibition is the idea of the interior as a site for emotional and psychological expression, with each artist using it to examine aspects of male experience.
Titled after David Hockney’s iconic 1972 painting Portrait of an Artist (Pool with Two Figures), the exhibitionfurther references Hockney's Domestic Scene series, created between 1960 and 1970. This series examined intimacy, queerness, and domesticity, while underscoring Hockney’s ongoing exploration of self through portraiture and figurative painting.
Known for his bold use of colour and geometric forms, Hockney’s work often depicts private moments in domestic spaces – bathrooms, bedrooms, living rooms, and pools – the rooms and the objects contained within them reflective of the psychological terrain of the occupants and perhaps the artist himself. The pool, a recurring motif in Hockney’s work at this time, not only indicates the Los Angeles location the works were created, but is transformed into a symbol for both relaxation and isolation. The figures, often interpreted as Hockney’s self-portrait and his lover, the artist Peter Schlesinger, are at once intimate and emotionally complex: physically present yet emotionally distant, offering a poignant commentary on connection and separation and becoming exemplary of the enduring male muse-male artist relationship in art history.
At its core, Portrait of an Artist (Pool with Two Figures), delves into the interior as a mirror of the male psyche. The home is where power, control, vulnerability, alienation, and desire intersect. Artists like Francis Bacon used the interior to explore the fragility and isolation of the human condition, particularly in relation to male identity. His unsettling depictions of men in confined spaces suggest that the home, far from being a sanctuary, can also be a site of emotional and existential crisis. Van Gogh’s interior scenes, similarly, evoke the artist’s psychological and physical isolation. Hockney’s depictions of male figures in relaxed, domestic settings were groundbreaking at the time, challenging traditional representations of masculinity. Whilst Hockney’s domestic interiors are vibrant and filled with light, they sought to reveal vulnerability and complexity rarely seen in art, opening many dialogues concerning love, loneliness, yearning and loss. His work challenges the notion of the domestic space as a mere refuge, showing how these interiors can become places of both emotional discovery and nuanced conflict. With this in mind, the exhibition features a grouping of contemporary male artists who, arguably, build upon Hockney’s themes.
For Killion Huang, the domestic interior reflects both privacy and concealment, offering a subtle critique of queer visibility, particularly in marginalised contexts such as China. Huang’s work creates spaces of refuge while engaging with the challenges of hiding one’s identity in plain sight. Similarly, Kris Knight’s figurative paintings and portraits blend intimacy with distance, heaviness with lightness. They evoke emotional realms that reflect both the artist’s past and present, offering a retreat from the world while simultaneously engaging with it. Through soft pastels and tonal oil paints, Knight creates shifting moods and experiences that explore the balance between private and public selves. Adriel Visoto’s delicate, miniature oil paintings are a contemplation on intimacy, anonymity, and collective memory often serving as a confessional medium. They seek to capture a modern sense of solitude and domestic ritual in a bustling city, so evoking the essence of artists such as Edward Hopper. By working in smaller formats, Visoto seeks to foster an intimate connection with the viewer.
Kofi Perry’s multi-figure narrative paintings reimagine the male body operating within architectural spatial settings. Observed through the canon of Afrofuturism, Perry’s vision fluctuates between something ancient and altogether futuristic. His repeated figures probe archetypes of masculinity – heroism, sainthood, and militancy – and come from his own experience of the way blackness is stereotyped in mythological, historical and social contexts. Additionally, Perry works with peinture à l'essence, a traditional painting method used by Impressionist artist’s such as Degas that deepens the emotional and symbolic resonance of his work and roots it in a certain classical approach to figuration.
Morteza Khakshoor’s work often centres on the male figure, exploring its flaws, struggles, and vulnerabilities. His male subjects, like all his figures, emerge through a mix of found images, memories, and imagination, translating these fragments into colourful yet tragic paintings. Growing up in Iran, where boys and girls were separated in school, Khakshoor was immersed in a testosterone-driven environment, which he describes as “homo-social”, exacerbated by the unruliness of his school environment. His experience deepened in co-ed college, living in male-only dorms where boundaries were pushed and chaos often ensued. These experiences, alongside absorbing the films of Orson Welles, Akira Kurosawa, and Laurence Olivier, sparked in him a deep, obsessive fascination with men – both their potential and their darker sides – and with his own identity as a man.
Known for his figurative painting, Igor Moritz employs bold, vibrant colours in his paintings to capture human solitude. His work blends influences from Henri Matisse, Ernst Ludwig Kirchner, and Francis Bacon, resulting in a unique fusion of Fauvism and Expressionism. Here, Moritz translates his figures into small bronze sculptures that distil the quiet intimacy of his painted works.
Steffen Kern’s verisimilitude pencil on paper works of atmospheric interior scenes are reminiscent of cinematography in their technicolour detail and chiaroscuro. However, these drawn scenes are conjured from his memory, the meditative process of his very imagination assuming the role of figure.
The exhibition also draws on the philosophical ideas of Martin Heidegger, who argued that the purpose of art is to reveal truths – aletheia – by uncovering hidden aspects of reality. For these artists, engaging with the interior space is not just about creating a visual artwork, but about allowing emotional and psychological truths to emerge. In this way, the domestic space becomes an exploration of masculinity – its contradictions, vulnerabilities, and histories.
The theme of the domestic interior has long resonated in art, reflecting the complexities of human existence, our relationships, desires, vulnerabilities, and sense of belonging. Throughout the exhibition, the interior setting – be it imagined or from life – emerges as a powerful metaphor for the emotional terrain navigated by these male artists, and is used as a conduit to challenge stereotypes. In this way the domestic space or voyeuristic and intimate setting acts as both a literal and metaphorical stage for exploring personal truths. The domestic space, as both a site of struggle and beauty, continues to serve as an essential canvas for exploring what it means to live, love, and belong and, more often than not, reveal the deep emotional resonance of intimate, everyday moments.
