EXHIBITION: THOMAS GRAFF - Intimacy is intricate

Thomas Graff; Shadow Self

Thomas Graff; Window Installation of Intimacy is Intricate / Golden Tears

Thomas Graff; Golden Tears

Thomas Graff; Installation of Intimacy is Intricate / Golden Tears

Works on Paper and Paintings

Brokers Gallery presents two concurrent bodies of work by Thomas Graff, exhibited side by side: Intimacy Is Intricate, a series of charcoal and carbon drawings, and Golden Tears, a suite of new paintings incorporating 14k gold foil. Together, these works form a dual meditation on vulnerability, masculinity, grief, and the quiet intensity of being seen.

In Intimacy Is Intricate, Graff explores intimacy through the lens of the gay male experience, shifting attention away from spectacle and toward the subtle spaces where connection lives: a lingering gaze, the pause before touch, the weight of proximity. Executed with immediacy and restraint, these drawings embrace the raw volatility of charcoal and carbon—allowing gesture, energy, and unfinished edges to mirror intimacy itself: fluid, transient, and deeply human.

In Golden Tears, Graff turns toward loss and renewal. Created in response to profound personal transformation between 2021–2024, the paintings depict men in moments of quiet vulnerability, their tears rendered in 14k gold foil. Gold—one of the Earth’s most valued materials—becomes a transformative element, recasting grief as something luminous and enduring. The work challenges the cultural discomfort around male emotion, reframing tears not as weakness, but as presence: intimate, dignified, and real.

Presented together, Intimacy Is Intricate and Golden Tears offer a contemporary portrait of tenderness and resilience—where sorrow and beauty coexist, and vulnerability becomes its own form of power.