# Anthony Cudahy

Anthony Cudahy (born 1989) is an contemporary American painter known for his figurative compositions that blend abstraction and realism, drawing from a diverse sources including personal photographs, queer archival imagery, art history, and cinematic stills. Based in Brooklyn, New York, Cudahy explores themes of intimacy, vulnerability, queer identity, and the interplay between past and present through layered painting. His paintings are known for their tender and complex depictions of human experience, often rendered in luminous, phosphorescent colors and fluid brushstrokes that give his scenes a dreamlike quality.

## Life and Education

Anthony Cudahy was born in 1989 in Fort Myers, Florida, a region characterized by wetlands and subtropical climate. His upbringing in Florida subtly informs his work, with natural elements such as flora and light often appearing as recurring motifs. Seeking broader artistic opportunities, Cudahy relocated to New York City, where he pursued his formal education in the arts. In 2011, he earned a Bachelor of Fine Arts (BFA) from the Pratt Institute in Brooklyn, a prestigious institution known for its rigorous arts programs. He returned to school to complete a Master of Fine Arts (MFA) at Hunter College in New York in 2020. This advanced training honed his technical skills and deepened his conceptual approach, allowing him to refine his distinctive style. Cudahy lives and works in Brooklyn, New York, with his husband, photographer, Ian Lewandowski.

## Artistic Style and Themes

Cudahy’s work occupies a space between figuration and abstraction. The subjects of his paintings are often human figures — solitary or in pairs — set within ambiguous, atmospheric environments such as domestic interiors, natural landscapes, or social gatherings. The scenes in his paintings often present an ambiguous narrative which invites viewers to interpret the emotional and historical content. Cudahy's paintings are often a hybrid of visual histories blending various figures from art history and queer photography into contemporary scenes such as portraiture, domestic spaces, or social sites.
Central to Cudahy’s oeuvre are themes of queer identity, tenderness, and the continuum of experience across time. His works often depict intimate moments — lovers embracing, figures in quiet reflection — that speak to the nuances of human connection. Trauma and hope coexist in his paintings, as he examines how personal and collective histories shape the present. By reimagining forgotten or marginalized stories, particularly those tied to queer experience, Cudahy constructs allegories that resonate with both specificity and universality.
Cudahy draws inspiration from an eclectic archive that includes personal snapshots, film stills, computer screenshots, queer historical photographs, and art-historical references ranging from medieval tapestries to the works of Pieter Bruegel and William Blake. Lewandowski, also contributes to this archive, notably through the inclusion of images from Cudahy’s great-uncle Kenny Gardner. This interplay of personal and collective memory allows Cudahy to recontextualize the past, addressing contemporary issues through a historical lens.
Cudahy has explained that the act of reproducing an image, such as the pixelated digital glitch depicted in Zachary (delayed), and translating it into painting, generates a new "language" with its own visual codes and meanings, essentially adding a layer of interpretation and history to the original image. The artist's process of translating an image into a painting becomes a personal interpretation, adding another layer to the image's lineage and signifying the artist's unique perspective on the source material.
Cudahy’s painterly technique is as important as his thematic subjects. He employs a range of methods — fluid brushstrokes, thick impasto, delicate mark-making, and vibrant patterning — to create compositions that feel both spontaneous and crafted. His use of phosphorescent colors, often glowing as if lit from within, give his works an ethereal quality, while his handling of paint serves as a narrative tool in itself.
Alongside his paintings, Cudahy produces colored pencil drawings, a medium that reflects his meticulous attention to detail and complements the emotive intensity of his canvases.

## Career and Exhibitions

Cudahy’s first solo exhibition, Heaven Inside, was at Uprise Art Outpost in Chelsea, New York, in 2014. His early works already demonstrated his signature style: washed-out figures rendered with emotional depth against vibrant, abstracted backgrounds.

### Solo Exhibitions

* Spinneret, (2024): Cudahy’s first U.S. museum solo exhibition debuted at the Ogunquit Museum of American Art in Maine, later traveling to the Green Family Art Foundation in Dallas, Texas. Accompanied by a comprehensive monograph published by Phaidon, the exhibition explored five thematic threads—slippages, allegories, fragments, figures, and spaces—highlighting the conceptual and material richness of his practice over the past half-decade.
* Fool's Errand, Grimm Gallery, London, UK, 2024
* Fool’s Gold, Hales Gallery, New York, NY, 2024
* Conversation, 2023: His first solo institutional show in Europe, held at the Musée des Beaux-Arts de Dole in France, marked a milestone in his international presence.
* Double Spar, 2023: A dual exhibition at Hales Gallery and GRIMM in London, this project featured iterative paintings that responded to one another across venues, showcasing his interest in narrative mutation.
* Anthony Cudahy, Flames, Semiose Gallery, Paris, FR, 2021
* Coral Room, 2021: Presented at Hales Gallery in New York, this show solidified his reputation for blending personal and poetic elements in masterful compositions.
* Anthony Cudahy, The Moon Sets A Knife, Semiose Gallery, Paris, FR, 2021
* Anthony Cudahy: Burn Across the Breeze, 1969 Gallery, New York, NY, 2021
* Night Paintings, 1969 Gallery, New York, NY, 2018
* The Gathering, The Java Project, Brooklyn, NY, 2018
* NARSOLIPS, Cooler Gallery, Brooklyn, NY, 2016
* EatF_3, Mumbo's Outfit, within Geary Contemporary, New York, NY, 2016
* The Fourth Part of the Day, Farewell Books, Austin, TX, 2015
* Recent Work, Artha Project Space, Long Island City, NY, 2015
* Heaven Inside, Uprise Art Outpost, Chelsea, NY, 2014

## Public Collections

Cudahy’s paintings are held in several major public collections worldwide, reflecting their cultural and artistic value. Notable institutions include:
* Baltimore Museum of Art, Baltimore, Maryland
* Cantor Arts Center at Stanford University, Stanford, CA
* Dallas Museum of Art, TX
* Institute of Contemporary Art, Miami, Florida
* Kunstmuseum,The Hague, the Netherlands
* Les Arts au Mur Artothèque, Pessac, France
* Musée d'Art Moderne de Paris, Paris, France
* New York Historical Society, New York, NY
* Speed Art Museum, Louisville, KY
* Stedelijk Museum, Amsterdam, Netherlands

## Legacy and Impact

Anthony Cudahy is a contemporary figurative painter, whose work is bridging historical reverence with modern sensibility. His ability to weave together disparate visual languages—queer photography, art history, and personal narrative—positions him as a storyteller of both the mundane and the profound. Critics have likened him to contemporaries such as Salman Toor and Jennifer Packer, yet his voice remains distinctly his own, marked by a romantic attachment to color, form, and the transformative potential of paint. Cudahy’s work challenges viewers to reconsider the boundaries between past and present, individual and collective, offering a vision of art as a living history.

## Residencies

Cudahy was an artist-in-residence at the ARTHA Project, New York in 2013-14.