Sam Moyer-Kardos's art borrows from traditional figure painting styles and explores how heteronormative stereotypes carry over into queer relationships.

Their primary interest is queer people and their environments. Faces are sometimes cropped out and the figures are angled in a way to direct the viewer to intimate moments such as the touch between two people. The artist’s goal is to command the attention of the viewer to tender moments that still make a lot of people uncomfortable, despite the progress of the last few decades.

Sam wants to create a moment where the viewer can visualize themselves as the subject of the painting—someone who is marginalized. Most of their paintings represent the reality of the subject, both inviting and addressing a voyeuristic gaze. They’re inspired by the artist Alice Neel, who uses the gaze to present a truthfulness and reality of the unidealized body.