David Boyce is a New Zealand-born contemporary artist based in Hong Kong. His works examine ideas including memory, identity, language and beauty, while making reference to various art historical movements such as Renaissance painting and Conceptual art.
Read MoreBoyce's practice encompasses photography, painting, textiles and installation. Often working in series, the artist reproduces a concept in multiples to formulate a narrative around a specific line of enquiry. He has described his influences as including Conceptual art, Renaissance art, Minimalism and Postmodernism, and has collaborated with artists including Adrian Wong and Hiram To.
Boyce has appropriated stylistic components of theatre, including lighting, makeup and costuming, to question the notion of the singular heroic original artist. The series From the Shoulders of Giants (2013) was presented at the artist's titular solo exhibition at Blindspot Gallery, Hong Kong in 2013, and featured self-portraits of Boyce masquerading as notable historic artists, or 'giants'—such as Frida Kahlo, Vincent van Gogh, Rembrandt, and Giuseppe Arcimboldo. Layering paint, photographs and projection, Boyce pays homage to these figures in a series while tracing his own practice in reference to a lineage of art history. The highly-staged, manipulated nature of the images reflects Boyce's interest in identity, perception and memory in a series wrapped in performative illusion.
Boyce's later practice sees a shift towards painting and installation, and reflects upon the coronavirus pandemic. The Beauty in Danger series (2020) comprises a number of acrylic paintings on black velvet depicting candy-coloured bacterial forms.
Beauty in Danger 1 (2020) contains an animated representation of a virus, precisely painted in neon green and teal. Similarly, Beauty in Danger 2 (2020) depicts an aerial view of a petri dish containing ambiguous circular forms. Boyce's pseudo-scientific cellular studies take an aesthetic view towards the threat of viruses, mystifying them in seductive colours and luscious textures. Paired with accompanying sound elements, the viewer's experience of the paintings is transformed to a multi-sensory one.
Other works by Boyce have taken a more conceptual, self-referential approach, and used language in a way which recalls Conceptual art and text works by artists such as Joseph Kosuth, Ed Ruscha or John Baldessari. Paintings with wry, idiosyncratic statements such as 'That work is smaller, why is it more expensive?'; 'Of course I should talk with my art advisor first.'; 'How strong is their auction record?'; and 'I can make multiples.' deliver humorous critique pointed towards the art world and its industries. Meticulously rendered in hand-signwriting style, Boyce's provocative text works formulate a light-hearted critical commentary that appears directed towards the artist's own practice as much as it is to the external art economy.
Boyce has held residencies at the Vermont Studio Center, Vermont, USA (2015); Arteles Center, Haukijärvi, Finland (2013); and the Savannah College of Art and Design, Hong Kong (2013); and has presented talks at the Asia One Photo Book Awards in Hong Kong (2013), and at Virginia Commonwealth University in Richmond, Virginia, USA (2012).
Boyce has presented in solo and group exhibitions throughout the Asia-Pacific and in the United States.
Select solo exhibitions include From the Shoulders of Giants, Blindspot Gallery, Hong Kong (2013); Affective Portraits: A Collaboration with Adrian Wong, Osage Gallery, Hong Kong (2012); Short Stories, Suite Gallery, Wellington, New Zealand (2011); Being — Longing, Suite Gallery, Wellington (2009).
Select group exhibitions include A Cow's Head And A Horse's Jaw, Karin Weber Gallery, Hong Kong (2021); WoP's All Stars in Jordan, PRÉCÉDÉE, Hong Kong (2021); WFH, Karin Weber Gallery (online) (2020); In Conversations, YY9, Hong Kong (2015); Gallery Artists Group Exhibition, Blindspot Gallery, Hong Kong (2014); Out of the Box, TCC Photo Gallery, Longview, Texas (2013); I'll Be Your Mirror, OV Gallery, Shanghai (2013); Grottos, Shrines and Sacred Spaces, Thermostat Gallery, Palmerston North, New Zealand (2013); Traits, Ox Warehouse, Macau (2012); Krappy Kamera, Soho Photo Gallery, New York (2012).
Boyce's work is held in private, public and corporate collections in New Zealand, Asia, Europe and the United States.
David Boyce's website can be found here, and his Instagram can be found here.
Ocula | 2022
