Intimate Figures

Meet the artists of our upcoming group exhibition, 'Intimate Figures'.

Intimate Figures brings together five painters approaching the figure in different ways. Some work through narrative and recognizable scenes, while others move toward more fragmented or abstract forms. Across the exhibition, bodies appear in domestic interiors, imagined landscapes, symbolic worlds, and unstable painterly surfaces, showing the range of what figurative painting can look like today.

TATIANA GORGIEVSKI (b. 1997, France)

For Tatiana Gorgievski, painting is a way of confronting reality without the mediation of language. A former student of philosophy at the École Normale Supérieure, she set aside theoretical analysis to explore a truth that cannot be stated, but must instead be experienced through the senses. Her work unfolds through a deeply introspective process: the canvas becomes the vessel of an inner search in which the image is not predetermined, but extracted from the medium itself. In this practice of immediacy, without sketch or fixed plan, she allows color to spread freely across the surface, then draws from the forms that emerge, deepening them as they appear. Within this dialogue with matter, the physical, almost epidermal qualities of paint awaken emotion and guide the movement of the work.

Born in Paris in 1997, Tatiana Gorgievski lives and works in Paris. After a Master’s degree in Philosophy at the École Normale Supérieure de Lyon (2020), she chose to anchor her conceptual research in materiality and joined ENSAV La Cambre in Brussels, where she graduated in 2024. Her work quickly gained international attention through residencies at the Moonens Foundation and in Los Angeles (The Cabin), as well as through her recent solo exhibitions in Brussels. Present at major art fairs such as Art Brussels and NADA New York, she stands out today as one of the most original voices of a new generation of painters.

ARTUR GRUCELA (b. 1987, Poland)

Artur Grucela is a painter based in Piwniczna-Zdrój whose work places solitary figures within vast, often hostile landscapes. Working in oil on canvas, he creates scenes that feel suspended between reality and myth.

His paintings frequently depict anonymous bodies moving through barren forests, scorched terrain, or strange natural settings that evoke both post apocalyptic imagery and older religious or literary worlds. Nature in his work is never decorative or comforting. Instead, it appears indifferent, overpowering, and at times almost infernal, reducing the figure to a fragile presence within the landscape.

Drawing from Symbolism, Romanticism, and artists such as Gustave Doré and William Blake, Grucela builds compositions that feel cinematic, melancholic, and slightly unsettling. Despite their darkness, the paintings remain quiet and restrained, relying more on atmosphere than narrative.

RALF KOKKE (b. 1989, Netherlands)

Ralf Kokke is a Rotterdam-based painter known for his highly stylised figurative paintings filled with symbolic figures, animals, and dreamlike landscapes.

Drawing from childhood memories, mythology, cave paintings, and ancient art traditions, Kokke creates imagined worlds where humans, nature, and invented creatures exist side by side. His compositions often feel playful at first, but there is something stranger underneath. Bodies shift scale, animals take on symbolic roles, and familiar scenes start to feel slightly unreal.

While his references range from Egyptian and Sumerian imagery to the psychology of Carl Jung, the paintings never feel historical or academic. Instead, they unfold more like fragments from dreams or distant myths, built through flattened perspectives, simplified forms, and recurring symbols.

Kokke studied painting at the Royal Academy of Fine Arts in Antwerp and has exhibited internationally with galleries including Kristin Hjellegjerde, Hans Alf Gallery, and Nino Mier Gallery. In 2024, he was nominated for the Dutch Royal Painting Award, after being named a finalist for the Royal Award for Modern Painting in 2022, one of the most important painting prizes in the Netherlands. His work is held in several public and private collections, including the Dordrecht Museum collection, the Van Gogh Huis collection, and the Vietnam Art Collection. He has also received residencies and grants from institutions including the Dordrechts Museum and the Van Gogh Huis in Zundert.

JACOB TODD BROUSSARD (b. 1992, USA)

Jacob Todd Broussard is a painter based in Richmond, USA, who received his BFA in Painting from the University of Louisiana at Lafayette in 2014 and his MFA in Painting and Printmaking from Yale School of Art in 2019.

Drawing from personal history, queer culture, and Southern vernacular imagery, he creates psychologically charged scenes that feel both intimate and theatrical. His paintings often unfold through fragmented interiors, staged environments, and dreamlike spaces where figures, objects, and symbols seem suspended between reality and fiction. Light plays a central role in the work, shaping atmospheres that feel at once familiar and slightly disorienting. Throughout his practice, Broussard returns to ideas of transformation, perception, and the tension between individuality and belonging.

Broussard currently teaches Painting and Printmaking at Virginia Commonwealth University. Alongside his studio practice, he has developed a broader body of work centered on storytelling, queer interiority, and the emotional possibilities of painting.

He’s shown work in various exhibitions across Louisiana, New York, California, Pennsylvania, Connecticut, and Canada. He was a 2020/21 Drawing Center Viewing Program participant and a recipient of the Elizabeth Greenshields Grant for three consecutive years. His work has been reviewed in Cornelia Magazine and Burnaway. He has been an artist-in-residence at the Atlantic Center for the Arts, the Elizabeth Murray Artist Residency, Bunker Projects, The League Residency at Vyt, and more. He co-founded Kingfish, an art and architecture project space based in Buffalo, NY, and hosts an art podcast, Tintamarre. He is an Assistant Professor of Painting and Printmaking at Virginia Commonwealth University.

CARLOS RODRÍGUEZ (b. 1980, Mexico)

Carlos Rodriguez is a figurative artist based in Mexico City. Initially trained in graphic design at the Universidad de San Luis Potosí, he transitioned from a career in advertising, where he worked as an illustrator and art director, to focus entirely on painting.

Exploring themes of desire, gender, and identity, Rodríguez works across drawing, painting, and ceramics, often taking the male figure as his subject. Drawing inspiration from classical painting, naïve art, and visual elements associated with adult entertainment, his works depict men immersed in moments of play, intimacy, and fantasy.

Over the past four years, Rodríguez has presented his work internationally through exhibitions in galleries across New York City, Paris, Los Angeles, São Paulo, Hong Kong, and Dubai.

Together, these five artists present different approaches to figuration, ranging from intimate everyday scenes to fragmented bodies and imagined landscapes. While each practice is distinct, all of the works in Intimate Figures share an interest in how the figure can carry emotion, memory, tension, or atmosphere.

Intimate Figures opens on May 6 at EDJI Gallery and will be on view through June 6.

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