Keith Boadwee was born in Meridian, MS in 1961 and currently lives in Emeryville, CA. He received a Master of Fine Arts from the University of California, Berkeley, CA in 2000 and a Bachelor of Arts from the University of California, Los Angeles, CA in 1989. Boadwee’s work was the subject of numerous one-person exhibitions including at institutions Atelier 34zero Museum, Jette, Belgium (2017) and SF Camera Work, San Francisco, CA (1994). In 2021, Nicole Eisenmann invited him to exhibit in a two-person show at the Flag Art Foundation in New York. His work has also been included in thematic exhibitions such as AA Bronson’s Garden of Earthly Delights, Salzburger Kunstverein, Salzburg, Austria (2015); AA Bronson’s Sacre du Printemps, Grazer Kunstverein, Graz, Austria (2015); 15 Minutes of Fame: Portraits from Ansel Adams to Andy Warhol, Orange County Museum of Art, Newport Beach, CA (2010); Prospect 1.5, New Orleans, LA (2010); Into Me / Out of Me, MoMA PS1, Long Island, NY and KW Institute for Contemporary Art, Berlin, Germany (2006); Grey Area, California College of Art, San Francisco, CA (2003); Bay Area Now 3, Yerba Buena Center for the Arts, San Francisco, CA (2002); The People’s Plastic Princess, Banff Center, Calgary, Canada (2000); Double Trouble: The Patchett Collection, San Diego Museum of Contemporary Art, San Diego, CA (1998); Selections from the Peter and Eileen Norton Collection, Santa Monica Museum of Art, Santa Monica, CA (1995); Bad Girls, New Museum of Contemporary Art, New York, NY (1994); Slittamenti, Venice Biennale, Venice, Italy (1993); and Performance Behind the Curtain, White Columns, New York, NY (1992).
Keith Boadwee's latest works embody playfulness in both narrative and gestural paint application. Boadwee’s unique sardonic sense of humor is ever present in the works, which engage with painting’s history both critically and earnestly in a similar vein to Viennese Actionism or Paul McCarthy. A common theme is painters making paintings, or the re-working of compositions by masters. Boadwee's paintings relish in carnality and sexuality, oftentimes presenting humorous scatological narratives. The artist possesses a childlike joy for all things sexual, fecal, and phallic, all the while remaining engaged in a critical reflection of art history.
Keith Boadwee & Club Paint is the artist's continuing body of collaborative paintings. Club Paint initially started as a collaborative painting project organized and initiated by Keith Boadwee with former students. Over time, Boadwee has taken control of all narrative and aesthetic decisions. The paintings are made using Boadwee's drawings as blue prints. While they are sometimes painted with the help of other hands (Club Paint), more recently they are just as likely to be made solely by Boadwee.