Synthespians by Adam Boyd

About

Synthespian: a computer-generated three-dimensional character, either in a wholly animated film or in one that is a mixture of live action and computer animation.

The title of Adam Boyd’s current exhibition refers to a rapidly evolving form of cinematic performance, where human traits and behaviours can be translated through data capture. This vestige of human performance is often subject to various forms of transfiguration in blockbuster movies.
The small scale of Boyd’s recent paintings tends to reject the spectacle of the big screen, in favour of a more intimate and obsessional translation of the figure. The reference images employed in the production of these works have been gleaned from paparazzi shots, illicitly taken during the awkward pre-production stage from several multi-million dollar releases. The resulting, close-cropped figurative paintings, revel in the description of the body reduced to a geometric formula. In Boyd’s rejection of spectacular scale, an emphasis on the physical characteristics of the paint layer is privileged, this movement from the virtual towards the material encourages associations with other cultural and art historical precedents.