J Rowen O’Dwyer: DEVOTIONS, to a dirty queer home | curated by Lillian O’Dwyer

On view: Aug. 31–Dec. 7, 2024

 

DEVOTIONS, to a dirty queer home is a collection of paintings, objects, and zines showing hard gazes, gentle touches, the complexity of bodies, and daily acts of care.

The exhibition is J Rowen O’Dwyer’s love letter to his community of trans folks and leather dykes. Each painting depicts friends and lovers in vivid color. The imagery of queer intimacy and the domestic realm originates from play parties, bar nights, as well as from candid moments from daily life of transexual bodies in pleasure, creation, and community.  

The photographic qualities of the work enhance the documentary aspects of the artist’s practice that nod to archival imagery of leather dykes from the 80s and 90s. Similarly, his zines capture the organizing O’Dwyer does within the Boston Leatherdyke scene, capturing a budding rebirth of the community over the last year. 

A dirty queer home is a rave, a park bench, the light under a street lamp, a place to piss in the alley, an unmade bed, a meal with a lover, a collar around your neck, the glow of a laptop screen, a soft place, the smell of leather and sweat, a moment of being seen, a moment of being felt.