Justin Boyd (b. 1974) is a San-Antonio based artist who utilizes a vast range of media—from video, sound, and performance to sculpture, installation and two-dimensional work—to create environments and objects that tell non-linear yet evocative stories about American history and layered cultural experiences.
For the exhibition at Arthouse, Boyd is creating an interwoven, multi-sensory installation based on the Mississippi River.
Our Lost Spirit
2005
Ashwaganda, Ginko Biloba, Bilberry (herbs for strength, wisdom and vision) heat, steam, pitch pipe (in the key of E)
The Pull of Near the Draw of Far (Vocal Butter Mix)
2005
Religious songs of American Indians, Shakers, and African Americans cut, mixed and whipped into one unorthodox medicine
Audio duration: 8:56
JUSTIN BOYD
CURRICULUM VITAE
Born in Irving, TX in 1974; lives and works in San Antonio.
SOLO EXHIBITIONS
2005
* Pulling a Folk Thread Through an Ether Quilt, Sala Diaz, San Antonio, TX
2003
* Gallery A402, CalArts, Valencia, CA, DJ performance, Museum of Contemporary Art, San Diego, CA
1998
* A Reconstructive Mix, Cactus Bra Gallery, San Antonio, TX
SELECTED GROUP EXHIBITIONS
2007
* Nexus Texas, Contemporary Arts Museum, Houston, TX
2005
* Positive Contact, Newspace, Los Angeles, CA
2004
* DJ performance, Gene(sis): Contemporary Art Explores Human Genomics, Weisman Art Museum, Minneapolis, MN
2003
* We’re Moving, CalArts Graduate Exhibition, Armory Center for the Arts, Pasadena, CA
2002
* Our Collapsed Star, Gallery A402, CalArts, Valencia, CA
2001
* Group Exhibition, California Institute of the Arts Gallery, Valencia, CA
2000
* Elton John’s Greatest Hits, Project Room, San Antonio, TX
* Speaker Hole, performance with Dario Robleto, Finesilver Gallery, San Antonio, TX
* Polar Soul, DJ performance with Dario Robleto, Artpace, San Antonio, TX
1999
* Sounds of Christmas, DJ performance with Christian Marclay, Artpace, San Antonio, TX
1998
* Young Artists in Clay, Arlington Museum of Art, Arlington, TX
* Inside the Loop, Blue Star Arts Space, San Antonio, TX
1997
* Graduate Exhibition, University of Texas at San Antonio
* DJ performance/installation for Dario Robleto, Cactus Bra Gallery, San Antonio, TX
* DJ performance for Hills Snyder, Sala Diaz, San Antonio, TX
1996
* Juried Student Exhibition, University of Texas at San Antonio
RESIDENCIES
2007
* Semester Program, Artpace and Fox Tech High School, San Antonio, TX
2001
* Skowhegan School of Painting & Sculpture, Skowhegan, ME
SELECTED LECTURES
2006
* “Two to Watch” series, Artpace, San Antonio, TX
* “Artists Looking at Art” series, McNay Art Museum, San Antonio, TX
BIOGRAPHY
Justin Boyd works in a staggering variety of media and modes, including sound recordings, live performance and theatrics, guerrilla printmaking, DJing and turntablism, and kinetic sculpture. Born in Irving, TX in 1974, Boyd received his BFA degree from the University of Texas at San Antonio and attended the prestigious Skowhegan School of Painting & Sculpture in Maine. He received his MFA degree in art and integrated media from the California Institute of the Arts in 2003.
Boyd continues to live and work in San Antonio where he creates projects that, among other things, evoke a sense of nostalgia for the lifestyle and spirituality of traditional American subcultures via complex sculptures that often combine sound, smell, and motion. In The Pull of Near the Draw of Far (Vocal Butter Mix) (2005), a handsomely built wooden butter churn conceals a motor that causes the object to churn itself, while an audio track plays remixed religious songs of early American Indians, Shakers, and African Americans “mixed and whipped into one unorthodox medicine.”
Medicinal themes continue in Our Lost Spirit (2005), where an object of Boyd’s invention called a “teasong” combines a teapot with a copper dome and pitch pipe. The multisensory contraption fills the room with the scents of ashwaganda, ginkgo biloba, and bilberry, which Boyd describes as “herbs for strength, wisdom, and memory,” while the steam blowing through the pitch pipe plays a soft note in the key of E.
Boyd has participated in numerous solo and group exhibitions, among them Pulling a Folk Thread through an Ether Quilt at Sala Diaz, San Antonio, TX; Nexus Texas at the Contemporary Arts Museum, Houston, TX; and numerous collaborations with friend and fellow San Antonio artist, Dario Robleto.