Cobi Moules

Untitled (Ship Harbor)

2020

Based in New York, painter Cobi Moules creates work that engages with queer and transgender identity, relationships, pop culture and the complexities of family. Moules’s self-portraits, both realistic and imagined, express a signature style consisting of multiple copies of himself, often painted over 19th-century American landscapes. Moules chooses these locations intentionally for their connections to “America’s first true artistic fraternity” — the Hudson River School.

Moules was born in 1980 in Oakdale, California, and his early memories include painting on his grandmother’s porch, struggling with the process and his mistakes. Despite his frustration, Moules found himself returning to art again and again. 

In 2004, Moules graduated from San Jose State University with a Bachelor of Fine Arts, and in 2010, he received a Master of Fine Arts from the School of the Museum of Fine Arts at Tufts University. Moules was an artist-in-residence at six different organizations, earning fellowships from the School of the Museum of Fine Arts in 2008 and the Joan Mitchell MFA Grant in 2010. After graduation, Moules earned the Vermont Studio Center Fellowship and the Ruth and Harold Chenven Foundation Grant.

Two of his projects are named after modified lyrics from a famous Cyndi Lauper song: "Bois Just Want To Have Fun" and "That’s All They Really Want." They vibrantly examine the visual renegotiation of personal image. 

Moules’s work has been exhibited widely across the United States, including at the Minneapolis Institute of Art, the Jepson Center in Georgia, the Ogunquit Museum of American Art in Maine and Smack Mellon in New York. The Leslie Lohman Museum, Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art, the RISD Museum and the 21c Museum have all acquired his work. 

Moules’s work, which challenges the conventions of American art and its landscape painting traditions, continues to capture the attention of critics and collectors.

On 1stDibs, find a collection of Cobi Moules paintings.