
Although I consider myself to be a story-teller, writing an artist statement has always been a problem for me. My computer is littered with half finished (or half started) documents that begin with lines like ‘Leo Boyd is an award winning multidisciplinary artist who specialises in screen-printing and experimental 2D sculpture.’ which is a fine opening but when the statement proceeds to explain what my work is about the whole thing begins to fall apart. Therefore, I am trying a new approach.
I do consider myself to be a story teller but I tell my stories through the art works that I create and I (as with most other artists) make the art work in such a way that the work contains the explanation within itself. To paraphrase McLuhan ‘The artwork is the message.’
I grew up on the south coast of England in an unconventional household that was literally full to the brim with visual art; from paintings to record sleeves, comics, paperback book jackets and reproduction prints by artists like Albrecht Dürer and Heath Robinson. Making art was encouraged and I knew from a young age that making art was what I was going to do.
I have very distinct memories of intricate drawings of rooms with all of the furniture, the animals and the people arranged around me in the middle, lying on the floor doing a drawing of the room with all of the furniture, the animals and the people, yet smaller now and potentially smaller again, and so on into infinity.
Among other things, art can be a tool for understanding the world and when I was a child I very much used it this way. I’d take all of the puzzles of the universe and arrange them on the page until they fit into a composition that made sense or into a narrative that flowed. Nowadays when confronted with something I don’t understand I turn to art to puzzle it out, to take it apart and rebuild it bit by bit until it is a story that shows the puzzle as a whole.
From giant mise en scène street art paste ups, janky hand drawn animations, satirical B-movie posters, interactive stage sets and modified street sign installations, over the years I have used various mediums to tell my stories of the world.
Since the roll-out of AI generated images and large language models I have pivoted away from using a computer as a primary tool for creating art. In a culture flooded with oligarch funded climate denial, poisoned wells, crypto scams and deep fakes I have turned to the simplest tool in my toolbox to try and make sense of things, I have returned to the art of drawing.
Themes present in my recent drawings comprise of the role of the artist, the surveillance state, loss and grief, the beauty of adventure and the sublime in the mundane. And cats. There are always cats. These new works, all stripped back to the simplicity of white paint pen on black canvas, are revisitations to themes I have returned to again and again but now with all of the noise cleared away.
In some way I have come full circle to being that boy again- making intricate drawings of rooms with all of the furniture, the animals and the people arranged around me in the middle, lying on the floor doing a drawing of the room with all of the furniture, the animals and the people, yet smaller now and potentially smaller again, and so on into infinity…
