September 7 - 30, 2023

Elizabeth Leach Gallery is pleased to present Ididom, new paintings by Pat Boas. The paintings in Idiom push the boundaries of Boas’ abstract style. Drawing from observation and memory, Boas populates her work with a multitude of shapes, some harkening back to letter forms, others derived from fragments of objects and spatial relationships she notices throughout the day.

Much of Boas’ past work has been built around the written word, with letter forms often used as the basis for her layered, abstract paintings. This exhibition offers a departure from the word-asimage style which drove her earlier approach. In these new heavily layered paintings, Boas seeks to make meaning from sequences of formal decisions rooted in — but lying beyond — language. Certain pieces are akin to cubist still-life while others use moments of geometry to anchor a more atmospheric surface. Through improvisation and material exploration, Boas builds on the memory of familiar forms which then find their way onto her canvas. In this way, the show’s title of “idiom” finds its footing; each piece is made up of many unassuming fragments brought together, deriving new purpose from their relationship and proximity to one another. 

Pat Boas’ paintings, drawings and digital projects often use the form and sound-send of words as maps for abstraction. Elizabeth Leach Gallery has been exhibiting Pat Boas' work since 2010 and has represented her since 2015. Her work has been shown at the Portland Art Museum, Oregon Contemporary, PDX Contemporary and the Art Gym, in Portland, Oregon. Nationally her work has been exhibited at the Hallie Ford Museum (Salem, OR), the Center for Contemporary Art (Santa Fe, NM), the Boise Art Museum (Boise, ID), the Sun Valley Museum of Art (Ketchum, ID), the Salt Lake Art Center (Salt Lake, UT), the Nicolaysen Museum (Casper, WY), the Center on Contemporary Art (Seattle, WA) and the Cleveland Museum of Art (Cleveland, OH). She is a 2017 Hallie Ford Visual Arts Fellow. Select honors, fellowships, grants and residencies include the Bonnie Bronson Fund, the Corporation of Yaddo, Ucross Foundation, The Ford Family Foundation, Harold and Arlene Schnitzer CARE Foundation, Jentel Foundation, Oregon Arts Commission, Pollock-Krasner Foundation, Portland Art Museum, and Oregon’s Regional Arts and Culture Council. Reviews of Boas’ work have appeared in Art in America and Art Papers. She is a professor emerita in the School of Art + Design at Portland State University.