Phoebe Boswell | Liminal Beach

Wentrup is pleased to present Liminal Beach, the first solo exhibition by London-based artist Phoebe Boswell in Germany. A woman flings herself into the air on a secluded beach, her red dress lifting from the force of that leap, its color a vibrant splash against the blue sky and endless horizon. She is so exuberant that she seems to defy gravity. Any moment now, those graceful arms might carry her away beyond where we can see. Phoebe Boswell’s Liminal Deity could be a portrait of joy and exhilarating freedom. But that dress: it is both elegant and harrowing, made of either feathers or flesh. Its shade of red hovers on the edge of darkness. Those could be feathers whipping in the wind. It could also be tender flesh, disintegrating. It is flight in motion. It is a wound exposed. The shadow that seems to dance in front of this woman, could it be trying to flee? So much in this work is a suggestion: is this joy, or is this pain? It is impossible to know from her expression, the face is rendered featureless. Liminal Deity, like all of Phoebe Boswell’s art, dares us to give up our certainties. It challenges us to travel across uncharted territory, not for the sake of safety, but for a more complicated and layered understanding of all that can exist at once. In that space, Boswell asserts, lives possibility and even freedo