Lukas Moll

Lukas Moll is a queer artist based in Cologne whose figurative portraits explore themes of identity, vulnerability, and resilience – often through a queer lens.

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His fictional characters appear blurred, faded, or, at times, fragmented – their indistinct forms serving as visual metaphors for the complexities of human identity and the fragility of the self.  

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Shrouded in layers of fog or horizontal smudges of paint, these figures remain distant and guarded, evoking a sense of trauma, hardship, and vulnerability - but also quiet strength. These hazy veils, which both reveal and conceal, imprison and protect, give form to the invisible inner struggles many queer individuals face due to social discrimination, as well as the universal human struggle to fully understand and accept oneself.​ Moll’s work amplifies the tension between one’s desire to be seen and accepted, and the fear and difficulty of revealing one’s true self. We are never offered a clear view of his subjects – just as we can never fully comprehend another person’s identity. Instead, we are left to project our own assumptions, traumas, and experiences onto them.

 

The way in which Moll blurs his figures recalls the artistic techniques of Gerhard Richter, while his subjects pulse with a silent pain reminiscent of Francis Bacon’s anguished sitters.