Past Exhibitions

Keioui Keijaun Thomas

Come Hell or High Femmes

World Premiere

Gallery space with white walls and wooden floors, featuring an installation made of red and yellow paper bags, dead leaves, American flags, trash bags, red lights, and other miscellaneous objects.
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Jun 10, 2022–Aug 14, 2022
Thursday's Hours 10AM–8PM
Galleries

Free for all audiences 

Click here to view our latest COVID-19 protocols.

Stop by the Visitor Experience Desk on your way to the exhibition, and you'll be provided with a free gallery admission wristband.

See a full list of gallery policies on wexarts.org, including items prohibited in the galleries.

ACCESSIBILITY
We strive to host inclusive, accessible events that enable all individuals, including individuals with disabilities, to engage fully. If you have questions about accessibility, or to request an accommodation, please contact Accessibility Manager Helyn Marshall at accessibility@wexarts.org or via telephone at (614) 688-3890. Requests made by two weeks in advance will generally allow us to provide seamless access, but the Wexner Center for the Arts will make every effort to meet requests made after this date.

Become a Member

Premiering at the Wex, Keioui Keijaun Thomas’s Come Hell or High Femmes—a three-part film and multimedia installation—imagines a postapocalyptic world inhabited by Black trans and queer people.

Focusing on camouflage and metamorphosis as modes of survival and transcendence, Thomas’s new work envisions a time where “dolls”—a word loosely meaning trans women so flawless they’re no longer considered real—have survived a mass extinction event. Within her imagined, speculative environment, Thomas asks, “Why are dolls the only ones left? Perhaps, it is because trans femmes (often, but not always) are forged in nocturnality, where beauty and intelligence must learn to supersede time and space.”

In the videos, the artist explores a lush and verdant world, wandering across hills, babbling brooks, and oceans. Come Hell or High Femmes reclaims what it means to be Black in nature—forging new ways to exist in peace and joy, and to find healing in the midst of the American landscape.

This presentation is part of Portal For(e) the Ephemeral Passage, an interdisciplinary exhibition curated by jaamil olawale kosoko that amplifies Black feminist voices in contemporary art and performance. Click here to view the complete lineup.

At 8 PM on June 11, Thomas presents Come Hell or High Femmes: The Journey of the Dolls, a solo performance that will be livestreamed to audiences in the center’s Performance Space. Click here for more about the free event.

Learn more

"She connects the concerns of individual identity (‘Black,’ ‘trans,’ ‘femme’) to a collective project of planetary survival."
Artforum on Keioui Keijaun Thomas’s Come Hell or High Femmes
Gallery space with white walls and wooden floors, featuring an installation made of red and yellow paper bags, dead leaves, American flags, trash bags, red lights, and other miscellaneous objects.

Keioui Keijaun Thomas, Come Hell or High Femmes, 2022, in Portal For(e) the Ephemeral Passage, installation view at the Wexner Center for the Arts, June 10–August 14, 2022. Photo: Stephen Takacs.

Gallery space that is dimly lit with red light. The projection on the wall features Keioui Keijaun Thomas standing on a sandy beach, in between tall grass and trees. The ocean and blue sky are behind her. Square pieces of cardboard are taped to the wooden gallery floor in a seating arrangement.

Keioui Keijaun Thomas, Come Hell or High Femmes, 2022, in Portal For(e) the Ephemeral Passage, installation view at the Wexner Center for the Arts, June 10–August 14, 2022. Photo: Stephen Takacs.

A still image from artist Keioui Keijaun Thomas's video Comme Hell or High Femmes: Act 2. The Last Trans Femmes on Earth: Dripping Doll Energy. In the foreground, Thomas stands in a pool of water at the edge of a stream surrounded by green grasses. She has brown skin and long brown hair, and she is wearing a long, transparent, wet blueish dress and is dangling a stick from her right-hand fingers. In the background is a line of leafy green trees.

Keioui Keijaun Thomas, Come Hell or High Femmes: Act 2. The Last Trans Femmes on Earth: Dripping Doll Energy, 2021 (still). Three-channel video, 18:49 mins. Image courtesy of the artist, photo: Hannah Patterson.

Photo of artist Keioui Keijaun Thomas standing in front of gray ocean waves. She is wearing a blueish transparent top, and the ends of her long dark hair are wet. She gazes directly into the camera, and her head is tilted slightly upward.

Keioui Keijaun Thomas, 2021, photo: Rikki Porter Photography.

More about the artist

Keioui Keijaun Thomas chevron-down chevron-up

Keioui Keijaun Thomas (b. Florida) is based in Brooklyn, New York. She earned her MA from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago and her BFA with honors from the School of Visual Arts in New York City. Thomas is the inaugural winner of the Queer | Art 2020 Illuminations Grant for Black Trans Women Visual Artists and a 2018 Franklin Furnace Fund recipient. Check out the artist's Instagram here.

Tag(s)

Portal For(e) the Ephemeral Passage is organized by the Wexner Center for the Arts and curated by jaamil olawale kosoko in collaboration with all of its programming departments.

PORTAL FOR(E) THE EPHEMERAL PASSAGE MADE POSSIBLE BY
National Endowment for the Arts
New England Foundation for the Arts

EXHIBITIONS MADE POSSIBLE BY
Bill and Sheila Lambert
The Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts
Carol and David Aronowitz
Crane Family Foundation
Mike and Paige Crane

FREE GALLERIES MADE POSSIBLE BY
American Electric Power Foundation
Adam Flatto
Mary and C. Robert Kidder
Bill and Sheila Lambert

ADDITIONAL SUPPORT FOR FREE GALLERIES PROVIDED BY
CoverMyMeds
PNC Foundation

WEXNER CENTER PROGRAMS MADE POSSIBLE BY
The Wexner Family
Greater Columbus Arts Council
The Columbus Foundation
National Endowment for the Arts
Ohio Arts Council
American Electric Power Foundation
L Brands Foundation
Adam Flatto
Mary and C. Robert Kidder
Bill and Sheila Lambert
Institute of Museum and Library Services
Nationwide Foundation
Vorys, Sater, Seymour, and Pease

ADDITIONAL SUPPORT PROVIDED BY
Mike and Paige Crane
Pete Scantland
Axium Packaging
CampusParc
CoverMyMeds
Jeni’s Splendid Ice Creams
President Kristina M. Johnson and Mrs. Veronica Meinhard
Nancy Kramer
Huntington
Lisa Barton
Johanna DeStefano
Russell and Joyce Gertmenian
Liza Kessler and Greg Henchel
Ron and Ann Pizzuti
Joyce and Chuck Shenk
Bruce and Joy Soll
Jones Day

Discover More

A graphic with curved shapes in brown tones over which is the text "Portal For(e) the Ephemeral Passage"
Past Special Events

Portal For(e) the Ephemeral Passage Preview Party

Thu, Jun 9, 2022
Artist Keioui Keijaun Thomas performing Comme Hell or High Femmes at Performance Space New York. Her shoulders are bare, and there are two separate lines of floral-shaped rhinestones on her chest. On top of her head, she wears a plastic bag with the handles tied. The entire room is bathed in blue light.
Past Performing Arts

Keioui Keijaun Thomas

Come Hell or High Femmes: The Journey of the Dolls
Sat, Jun 11, 2022
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Past Exhibitions

Keioui Keijaun Thomas

Jun 10, 2022–Aug 14, 2022
Thursday's Hours 10AM–8PM
Galleries

Free for all audiences 

Click here to view our latest COVID-19 protocols.

Stop by the Visitor Experience Desk on your way to the exhibition, and you'll be provided with a free gallery admission wristband.

See a full list of gallery policies on wexarts.org, including items prohibited in the galleries.

ACCESSIBILITY
We strive to host inclusive, accessible events that enable all individuals, including individuals with disabilities, to engage fully. If you have questions about accessibility, or to request an accommodation, please contact Accessibility Manager Helyn Marshall at accessibility@wexarts.org or via telephone at (614) 688-3890. Requests made by two weeks in advance will generally allow us to provide seamless access, but the Wexner Center for the Arts will make every effort to meet requests made after this date.

Become a Member