The act of painting for Gabriella Boyd is an act of translation, from the interior or verbal, into the exterior and visual. Her paintings give visual form to internal sensations, memories, narratives and spaces held in the mind. Boyd explores and collapses the distinction between interior and exterior states by bringing together representational motifs with purely symbolic structures or diagrammatic forms. In an attempt to depict embodied experience and memory, painting enables the approximation of sentiment or language, allowing invisible sources of power and energy to flourish in indefinite but sincere, candid vocabularies.
Utilizing a distinct almost uneasy palette, her paintings, some imposing in scale, others quietly intimate, explore power relations between people and their environments; the charging or depletion of resources experienced within daily life spent in an urban city system. Pale greens, whites and yellows infuse select canvases with the luminous quality of artificial halogen bulbs, of street lamps and train carriages, refracted through hazy, geometric interiors that imply a doubling effect of windows or mirrors.
“Painting from an urban centre - Boyd focuses on topics of care and attention in a world that increasingly seems devoid of connection. Although we cohabit the city with millions of strangers and share intimate crowded spaces with them daily on the tube, it can never have the same effect of sharing a bedroom with a significant other. A caress differs from a medical swipe only in intention and intensity. It is these magnified relations that cannot be separated from flesh, body, mind, and space that enter an intermingled world of texture, colour, and hypnotic abstraction. Within the visual realm of Boyd’s architectural and pictorial vocabulary are the primordial emotions of human attention, of the necessity of sharing with others and the bonds that make us human.”
(Excerpt from Vigilant Space, Àngels Miralda, Mile, November 2022, p. 114)
Gabriella Boyd (b. 1988, Glasgow, UK) lives and works in London (UK). She studied at Glasgow School of Art (2007-2011) and Royal Academy Schools, London (2014-2017). She was shortlisted for the John Moores Painting Prize in 2016, and was commissioned by the Folio Society to illustrate a new edition of Sigmund Freud’s The Interpretation of Dreams in 2015. Her work is held in the permanent collection of AkzoNobel Art Foundation (NL); Arts Council Collection (UK); Columbus Museum of Art (US); The David and Indrė Roberts Collection (UK); De Young Museum, Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco (US); He Art Museum (CN); Long Museum (CN); The Rachofsky Collection (US); Royal Academy of Arts Collection (UK) and Walker Art Gallery Collection (UK).
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Immortal Apples, Eternal Eggs
21 Sep 2024 - 16 Mar 2025 Hastings Contemporary (UK) -
Self-Portraits
5 Apr - 4 May 2024 GRIMM 54 White St, New York, NY (US) -
Gabriella Boyd
Presser 23 Mar - 2 Jun 2024 Cample Line, Scotland (UK) -
Gabriella Boyd
Landing 17 Nov - 22 Dec 2023 GRIMM 2 Bourdon Street, London (UK) -
Gabriella Boyd
Mile 18 Nov 2022 - 14 Jan 2023 GRIMM 54 White St, New York, NY (US) -
The Kingfisher's Wing
Curated by Tom Morton 21 Jul - 19 Aug 2022 GRIMM 54 White St, New York, NY (US)
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Why Do Artists Keep Painting Self-Portraits?
Emily Steers, Artsy, April 23, 2024 -
The unstable bodies of Gabriella Boyd
Conrad Landin, Apollo, April 10, 2024 -
Through the Lens of a Body
Clemens Müller and Sophie Cassel, kennich, January 13, 2024 -
The Exchange: Gabriella Boyd and Francesca Mollett
Holly Black, Plaster, December 20, 2023 -
Gabriella Boyd’s Intangible Interiors at GRIMM Gallery
Rory Mitchell, Ocula, November 21, 2023 -
Gabriella Boyd’s Inflamed Colours and Forms Arrive at GRIMM
Phoebe Bradford , Ocula, November 24, 2022 -
Gabriella Boyd | 'Signal' at Friends Indeed Gallery
Constanza Falco Raez , Flaunt Magazine , March 31, 2022 -
Gabriella Boyd: For Days
Alice Gale-Feeny, This is Tomorrow, August 28, 2020 -
Studio Visit: Gabriella Boyd
Elephant Magazine, August 16, 2017
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Mile
Gabriella Boyd Published by GRIMM on the occasion of "Mile", a solo exhibition with new works by Gabriella Boyd at GRIMM, New York, NY (US), 2022Hard cover with linen, 120 pagesRead more
Publisher: GRIMM Amsterdam (NL)
ISBN: 978-90-831888-8-1
Dimensions: 22 x 15 cm | 8 5/8 x 5 7/8 in -
The Kingfisher's Wing
with essay by Tom Morton Published by GRIMM on the occasion of "The Kingfisher's Wing", 2022Hard cover with linen, 119 pagesRead more
Publisher: GRIMM Amsterdam (NL)
ISBN: ISBN 978-90-83|888-6-7
Dimensions: 22 x 15 cm | 8 5/8 x 5 7/8 in
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Six GRIMM artists part of "The Anomie Review of Contemporary British Painting 3"
The third comprehensive anthology focusing on the works of over eighty-five artists and the medium of painting in Britain. November 21, 2024Featuring GRIMM artists Louise Giovanelli , Gabriella Boyd , Jonathan Wateridge , Francesca Mollett , Caroline Walker and Michael Raedecker this third edition of The...Read more -
Gabriella Boyd joins RIA Residency in Scotland
September 21, 2024We are pleased to announce that London-based artist Gabriella Boyd will return to Scotland following her first instutional solo exhibition Presser at Cample Line to...Read more -
Gabriella Boyd to present her first UK institutional solo exhibition at Cample Line, Dumfriesshire (UK)
Presser | 23 March - 2 June 2024 February 13, 2024We are delighted to announce Presser , the first institutional exhibition for Gabriella Boyd opening at Cample Line in Scotland on the 23rd March and...Read more -
Gabriella Boyd to present her debut UK institutional solo exhibition at Cample Line in Scotland, Spring 2024
November 14, 2023London-based artist Gabriella Boyd will stage a solo exhibition of new paintings at Cample Line in Dumfriesshire opening 23 March and running through to 2...Read more -
GRIMM at Frieze London 2023
October 6, 2023GRIMM will present a series of new works from a range of international artists within the gallery program that reflect its foundations in the Netherlands,...Read more -
"Dam" (2022) by Gabriella Boyd acquired by the Long Museum, Shanghai
December 17, 2022GRIMM is pleased to announce the recent acquisition of Gabriella Boyd's Dam (2022) by the Long Museum, Shanghai (CN). This is the first acquisition of...Read more -
"Night Carriage" (2022) by Gabriella Boyd acquired by the AkzoNobel Art Foundation, Amsterdam
December 3, 2022GRIMM is pleased to announce the recent acquisition of Gabriella Boyd's Night Carriage (2022) by the AkzoNobel Art Foundation, Amsterdam (NL). This is the first...Read more -
Gabriella Boyd joins GRIMM
March 10, 2022GRIMM is pleased to announce the representation of London-based painter Gabriella Boyd. GRIMM will first present Boyd’s work in New York this summer as part...Read more