Nathaniel Boyd: Dreamscapes and Landscapes

About

“Painting and sculpture for me share a great deal with performance.  Sitting in a field painting the sky and distant hills, or sitting in the studio with a lump of clay, I endeavour to clear the mind and allow the work to happen; to be guided by an invisible force”. (Nathaniel Boyd, November 2022.)

In this exhibition, Boyd’s first solo show, the artist invites us to explore our relationships with the landscapes and dreamscapes we live with and are inspired by. The works display Boyd’s innate feeling for landscape, and are interspersed with virtuosic still lifes which emphasise the power of nature and the place of humanity within it. To stand before a Boyd landscape is to feel a powerful sense of place, and Boyd’s approach to landscape is unswervingly honest. The authentic nature of his plein air work (always completed within the landscape) is apparent in the powerful effect it has on the onlooker. This is crucial to Boyd’s relationship with the creative process: he sees his painting as a performance attempting to honour and embrace the moment.

The delicate depictions of the English landscape place us within the Chiltern hills, perhaps on a breezy day, overlooking a rainswept reservoir while the Tuscan works allow us a glimpse of the moment between sunset and dusk, as the church bells ring out over the valley and the golden light fades to darkest blue. Boyd’s delicate brushwork and use of softer blue, grey and green tones evoke the subtlety and beauty of the English landscape and is contrasted by the richness and strength of his colouristic approach to the Italian works.

The still lifes in this exhibition are a central focal point of glowing flowers, around which a vortex of abstract colours swirl; night skies, mirrored lakes, exploding galaxies and endless forests. Often, tiny figures stand mesmerised at the base of the flowers, looking up, or stand at fixed points in the landscape as the world shifts around them. Landscapes move through different timescales and atmospheres; the white blooms in Flowers in the Rain faintly glow behind a curtain of water, reminiscent of the botanical gardens of Kyoto, while the vibrant reds of the roses in Florence by Night sing out over the Arno between shimmering palazzos.

Boyd grew up in Highgate, as part of a long line of Australian artists; his passion for art and music emerged at a young age and he went on to study at The Royal Northern College of Music in Manchester. He enjoys an international reputation as a cellist, performing all over the world, and draws artistic inspiration from the cityscapes and landscapes he encounters during his travels. His work has been shown by galleries in Melbourne, Sydney and Brisbane, Australia as well as Green and Stone in Chelsea, London.