KEITH BOADWEE

Frogs & Dogs

October 9 - November 20, 2021

The Pit Palm Springs

CHECKLIST AVAILABLE HERE

The Pit is proud to present “Frogs & Dogs” an exhibition of new paintings by California-based artist Keith Boadwee featuring his iconic anthropomorphic animals. The exhibition will be on view at the gallery’s Palm Springs location from October 9 - November 20, 2021 with an opening reception on Saturday October 9 from 5-7PM. There will also be a catalog including 25 recent works and text by Trinie Dalton released during Palm Springs Pride with a book signing event by the artist on November 6, 2021 at the gallery. 

The frog and dog subjects of Boadwee’s recent works challenge heteronormative notions of identity and longing. While Boadwee’s animals have been intentionally de-sexed in order to hinder any preconceived notions of gender, they act as unorthodox stand-ins for themes of attraction and desire. As Trinie Dalton put it in her recent essay for Boadwee’s upcoming publication, “Those longing eyes, furtive gestures, irresistibly cute little paws and webbed feet, tongues and smokes luridly dangling from lips—it all reeks of afterparty. As a result of this tabula rasa, borderline-Gumby physicality, a door opens into a free-range, psychosexual playland, in which associations are left at the door in favor of romps through fetishy innuendo.”

The pull of Boadwee’s work lies in the liminal space between the satirical and the sincere. Anthropomorphism allows Boadwee to depict difficult subjects with a lightness not afforded to traditional portraiture - undertones of solitude, self-medication, longing, anxiety, and depression glazed over with a wash of humor. Boadwee describes his frogs as loosely autobiographical, as an uncontroversial stand-in for the human body, while his poodles are not. Titled “Spiritual Abstraction,” the poodles are presented as formal explorations of the same subject matter. Concentric circles and overlapping forms have a strong association to the abstract forms of spiritualist painters Hilma af Klint, Sonia Delauney and Agnes Pelton. Unlike the frogs which focus on more intimate narratives, Boadwee’s abstracted poodles act as a medium for larger cultural discussions of spirituality and transcendence during a time of intense social upheaval.

Boadwee has been painting frogs, dogs, and fish over the past decade. Within the context of an overall practice which relies heavily on performance, Boadwee’s animal paintings may feel like an outlier. But the artist’s use of self-imposed constraints and rules draw a line through his various practices. He works tirelessly creating one painting per day - a self-imposed schedule which frees him from potential self-doubt and allows him to focus on the act of painting itself.

For more information please email info@the-pit.la