Gabriella Boyd paints imagined spaces dressed in gauzy, ethereal light.
Since her work was featured in Hayward Gallery's 2021 exhibition Mixing it up: Painting Today, the Scottish artist has embarked on a series of solo exhibitions at notable galleries, including GRIMM Gallery in New York and Friends Indeed in San Francisco.
Notably, she has achieved market success at renowned art fairs like Frieze Seoul, where GRIMM Gallery sold her painting, Exit (iii) (2023), for U.S. $30,000.
In her second solo exhibition with GRIMM Gallery in London, titled Landing (17 November–22 December 2023), Boyd delves into the intangible realms of memory, emotion, and sensation.
One standout painting, Halogen (2023), uses sickly green, brown, and lilac tones to create an unsettling ambience within the confines of a train carriage positioned alongside railway tracks.
Within this hazy scene, viewers encounter various objects—a bunch of flowers and a white cross—amid indistinguishable forms and geometric patterns.
Luminosity emanating from the dim horizontal lines above and three vertical lines in the centre, evoke the harsh illumination of halogen lighting. This infusion of light creates an eerie mood, casting a strange atmosphere over a scene that blurs the boundaries between real and imagined spaces.
Landing precedes Boyd's inaugural institutional solo show at Cample Line in Dumfriesshire, Scotland, which is scheduled to open in spring 2024.
