Gabe Cortese b. 1994

Gabe Cortese’s painting practice centers on the construction of intimate, psychologically charged worlds shaped by queer narratives. His work explores yearning, affection, and relational tension through a tonal range that moves fluidly between comedy and drama, allowing moments of tenderness to coexist with ambiguity and unease.  

Working with both figuration and still life, Cortese approaches narrative as a fragmented and evolving system in which meaning accumulates through repetition, variation, and association rather than linear storytelling. Scenes often feel suspended in time, suggesting the trace of events that have already occurred or are just about to unfold. Within these spaces, presence is frequently registered through absence, and emotional weight is carried as much by what is withheld as by what is shown.  

Cortese frequently draws on compositional strategies and visual languages associated with art history, particularly religious painting traditions of the Renaissance and Mannerist periods. Rather than directly quoting specific works, he reconfigures their structures, gesture, illumination, and spatial tension, to develop narratives centered on queerness, sexuality, and interpersonal relationships. In doing so, he subverts historically codified motifs, redirecting their symbolic charge toward contemporary experiences of desire, vulnerability, and connection.

The figure remains central to his practice, often appearing as a composite or mutable presence derived from the artist’s own body and that of his partner. This recurring avatar operates as a flexible site of projection, allowing Cortese to investigate intimacy, identity, and the dynamics of looking. At times, the figure gives way to objects and fragments that assume heightened narrative significance, compressing emotion into distilled arrangements.  

Recurring elements, such as candles, flowers, blades, shadows, and architectural thresholds, function as shifting archetypes within his visual language. These forms do not operate as fixed symbols but as carriers of affect, capable of holding multiple, sometimes contradictory meanings. Light, in particular, plays a central role, both as a compositional device and as a marker of temporality and transformation.

In recent work, Cortese has moved toward increasingly pared-down compositions, emphasizing stillness, proximity, and subtle shifts in perception. This reduction intensifies the emotional charge of each element, allowing meaning to emerge through spatial relationships and quiet tension rather than overt action. Across his practice, narrative remains open-ended, forming a field of associations in which desire, memory, and transformation are held in continuous exchange.  

Gabe Cortese (b. 1994, Key West, FL; lives in Providence, RI) received his MFA from The University of Central Florida in 2021 and his BFA from The University of Central Florida in 2017. Select solo exhibitions include Nazarian / Curcio, Los Angeles, CA; Bremond Capela, Paris, France; G/ART/EN, Como, Italy; Auxier Kline, NYC, NY; M + B, Los Angeles, CA; The Cabin LA, Los Angeles, CA. Select group exhibitions include Le Mont Art Space, Taiwan; Nazarian / Curcio, Los Angeles, CA; Orlando Museum of Art, Orlando, FL; Green Family Art Foundation, Dallas, TX; G/ART/EN; Como, Italy; Woaw Gallery, Beijing, China; Quappi Projects, Louisville, KY; Auxier Kline, Brooklyn, NY; ParkHaus15, Orlando, FL; , Snap! Space, Orlando, FL; Tom of Finland Foundation, Los Angeles, CA; Terrace Gallery, Orlando, FL; Fusion Gallery, Orlando Science Center, Orlando, FL; Pop Gallery, Orlando, FL; Museum of Art shop, Orlando, FL; City Arts Factory, Orlando, FL; Double Leg Gallery, Orlando, FL; UCF Art Gallery, Orlando, FL. 

Cortese’s work is in the collection of the Institute of Contemporary Art, Miami, FL; The Orlando Museum of Art, Orlando, FL; X Museum, Beijing, China; and the Tom of Finland Foundation, Los Angeles, CA.