Kade Marsili (b. 1995) is a Seattle-based figurative painter whose work explores identity and intimacy through a queer lens. He received his BFA in painting from Kent State University in 2018, and has since exhibited in San Francisco, Chicago, Seattle, and New York City.

His paintings focus on charged, often fleeting moments between figures, where small gestures carry emotional weight. Working with a heightened palette, Marsili uses color as both a descriptive and psychological device, intensifying areas of contact so that touch, desire, and vulnerability register visibly across the body.

Through deliberate cropping, carefully constructed compositions, his images situate the viewer within scenes that feel immediate, private, and lived. These moments of connection are never fully resolved and beneath their softness runs an undercurrent of tension, ambiguity, and unease. Marsili’s work reflects a distinctly contemporary experience of intimacy, one that is at once personal, and deeply human.

My artist CV can be found online here.