Exploring the darkest corners of the human psyche
- Text by Miss Rosen
- Photography by Victor Cobo, Courtesy of ClampArt, New York City

Over the past two decades, Victor Cobo has used photography to explore the dark corners of the human psyche. His work uses a compelling mix of documentary and staged scenes, addressing the primal mysteries of life and death, damnation and salvation, trauma and sex.
“I’m an emotional person that has had my bout with addiction, depression and anxiety,” Cobo says. “My biological father is mentally ill, was addicted to heroin and an acute alcoholic. I think the aspect of isolation and drama comes out in my work. I utilise to my advantage his psychosis that I most likely inherited. I try to turn these aspects of darkness into beautiful and sometimes even playful images.”
In the new exhibition Remember When You Loved Me, Cobo uses photography to spellbinding effect. Drawing inspiration from surrealism, film noir, and German expressionism, the photographer has transformed the camera into a therapeutic medium.
“My photographic world flourishes with my drive to create beauty in an abstract universe of dreams and reality,” he explains. “It’s a method of escaping the darkness.”

© Victor Cobo, “To All the Ones that Come and All the Ones that Go, San Francisco Twins Now Deceased,” San Francisco, CA, 2007
“I remember as a child in Spain, I would draw while my mother and father fought constantly; creativity was my escape from the difficulties of having to be two different people. As a teenager, I started experimenting with taking pictures of my friends while we were high on psychedelic drugs. My work grew increasingly abstract, and I got into making imagery of darker things: strange landscapes, animals – real moody stuff.”
Whether working in Mexico, Thailand, Greece, Spain, Canada or in his hometown of San Francisco, Cobo finds solace in making photographs that negotiate the uncharted spaces of the mind as it fights for, and sometimes against, its own survival.
“The mysteries of life are intriguing to me,” he says. “I gave myself permission in a way to express myself as freely and completely as possible.”
For Cobo, art gives purpose and shape to the existential questions that underlie the extraordinary complexities, challenges, and contradictions of modern life. “Unless you have religious feelings or something along those lines, how can you not think that our lives are meaningless – and become more so with age?” he asks.
“Although I know it has no direct meaning, is that I find it absolutely necessary to create. I love the possibilities of invention and the possibilities of something happening. Not because they’re worth something, but because they excite me.”

© Victor Cobo, “Say Hello to My Little Friend, Stray Cat I’ve Been Feeding Everyday at the Villa,” Tulum, Mexico, 2018

© Victor Cobo, “Bath Art,” San Francisco, CA, 2015

© Victor Cobo, “Eyes Wide Shut, Ode to Stanley Kubrick II, Self-Portrait,” San Francisco, CA, 2013

© Victor Cobo, “The Moon is Locked Away and the Land is Banked in Frozen Snow,” East Village, NY, 2010

© Victor Cobo, “Strange What Love Does, Darcy’s Revenge,” New Jersey, 2011

© Victor Cobo, “Strike Dear Mistress and Cure His Heart,” Hell’s Kitchen, NY, 2013

© Victor Cobo, “The Stud,” San Francisco, CA, 2011

© Victor Cobo, “Tiny Tears Make Up an Ocean, Baby Dale’s Last Dance, Policeman Who Found an Abandoned Baby Tosses Her a Flower,” San Jose, CA, 2003

© Victor Cobo, “Take a Break from the Madness of the World and Enter This Altered Reality, Self-Portrait,” San Francisco, CA, 2014
Victor Cobo: Remember When You Loved Me is on view at ClampArt Gallery, New York, through August 9.
Follow Miss Rosen on Twitter.
Enjoyed this article? Like Huck on Facebook or follow us on Twitter.
Latest on Huck

Meet the trans-led hairdressers providing London with gender-affirming trims
Open Out — Since being founded in 2011, the Hoxton salon has become a crucial space the city’s LGBTQ+ community. Hannah Bentley caught up with co-founder Greygory Vass to hear about its growth, breaking down barbering binaries, and the recent Supreme Court ruling.
Written by: Hannah Bentley

Gazan amputees secure Para-Cycling World Championships qualification
Gaza Sunbirds — Alaa al-Dali and Mohamed Asfour earned Palestine’s first-ever top-20 finish at the Para-Cycling World Cup in Belgium over the weekend.
Written by: Isaac Muk

New documentary revisits the radical history of UK free rave culture
Free Party: A Folk History — Directed by Aaron Trinder, it features first-hand stories from key crews including DiY, Spiral Tribe, Bedlam and Circus Warp, with public streaming available from May 30.
Written by: Isaac Muk

Rahim Fortune’s dreamlike vision of the Black American South
Reflections — In the Texas native’s debut solo show, he weaves familial history and documentary photography to challenge the region’s visual tropes.
Written by: Miss Rosen

Why Katy Perry’s space flight was one giant flop for mankind
Galactic girlbossing — In a widely-panned, 11-minute trip to the edge of the earth’s atmosphere, the ‘Women’s World’ singer joined an all-female space crew in an expensive vanity advert for Jeff Bezos’ Blue Origin. Newsletter columnist Emma Garland explains its apocalypse indicating signs.
Written by: Emma Garland

Katie Goh: “I want people to engage with the politics of oranges”
Foreign Fruit — In her new book, the Edinburgh-based writer traces her personal history through the citrus fruit’s global spread, from a village in China to Californian groves. Angela Hui caught up with her to find out more.
Written by: Katie Goh