Ria Brodell’s ongoing Butch Heroes series is a revelatory project of historic excavation and Queer reclamation. Since 2010, the Boston-based artist has conducted archival research to find records of people with whom they could recognize a personal kinship—people who were assigned female at birth, but presented as more masculine than feminine and didn’t abide by heterosexual norms. Drawing upon descriptive accounts and primary sources, Brodell creates real or imagined portraits of their subjects in the style of Catholic holy cards. This aesthetic references Brodell’s Catholic upbringing and serves as a subversive move that extols people abused by the Church during their lifetime. Every painting marks an act of care shown toward its subject’s lives, loves, and identities in a celebration of ongoing efforts from within the LGBTQIA community to recover shared histories.

Ria Brodell’s ongoing Butch Heroes series recovers and celebrates previously lost moments in LGBTQIA history. Over the past thirteen years, Brodell has searched Boston’s archives for newspaper articles, journal entries, and court records that document people whose lives show evidence of gender nonconforming experience before the twentieth century. Their names and narratives serve as the basis for portraits inspired by Catholic iconography. These paintings (and the biographical notes that accompany them) memorialize the heroism of people who pursued life and love on their own terms.

Though many of the people Brodell discovered received public attention for their perceived “oddity” or violation of laws concerning gender performance, Brodell shifts the narrative away from unmitigated rejection or punishment. Instead, they balance their interpretation to share the creative, joyful ways Queer individuals throughout history have carved out lives for themselves within social structures designed to discourage or criminalize their identities. Drawing upon descriptive accounts and primary sources, Brodell creates real or imagined portraits of their subjects in the style of Catholic holy cards: handheld, devotional images of saints offering guidance that are commonly shared among friends and family. This aesthetic not only references the artist’s own upbringing in the Church, but it serves as a subversive act that venerates people who were abused by religious institutions during their lifetimes.

Ria Brodell is a non-binary trans artist, educator and author based in Boston. Brodell attended the School of the Art Institute of Chicago and received a BFA from Cornish College of the Arts in Seattle and an MFA from the School of the Museum of Fine Arts/Tufts University. Brodell has had solo and group exhibitions throughout the United States, is a recipient of an Artadia Award, a Massachusetts Cultural Council Artist Fellowship and an SMFA Traveling Fellowship. Brodell’s work has appeared in the Guardian, ARTNews, The Boston Globe, New American Paintings, and Art New England, among other publications. Brodell’s book, Butch Heroes, was released in 2018 via MIT Press.

Ria Brodell: Butch Heroes was organized by FAM’s Terry and Eva Herndon Assistant Curator Brooke “Eli” Yung.