Featured Artist
Jacqueline Boyd
Jacqueline Boyd is a Brigantine, New Jersey native. She grew up along the coastline, in a home abundant with warmth and kinship. After 30 years of managing her father’s sign shop, Boyd returned to school, obtained a Certificate in Painting from the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts, and pursued her new career as a professional painter. The dedicated artist remained committed to her goal of creative liberation despite the typical trials and tribulations that presented, which included taking the train from Atlantic City, NJ to Philadelphia, PA every weekday during her studies. While most people would feel shaken by the intensive program of study and challenging commute, it didn’t hold a light to Boyd’s dreams.
As an emerging artist, Jacqueline Boyd received significant local recognition for her craft. She is the recipient of The Frances D. Bergman Memorial Prize, the Eleanor S. Gray Prize for Still Life, the Rohm and Haas Fine Arts Achievement Award Purchase Prize, which includes being a part of the permanent corporate collection of Rohm and Haas, and the Fellowship Award of Excellence from The Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts. Boyd’s work has been featured in various galleries across Pennsylvania and New Jersey.
Jacqueline Boyd’s creative process is one of fluid thought, following her intuition, and letting go of expectations. Her subjects are always painted from observation with a specific focus on expressing gratitude for key elements of her life, such as: home, family, nature, memorabilia, and everyday objects that play a part in the artist’s daily routine.
Over the past year, Boyd has been hard at work in her studio in preparation for our current exhibition, “De/Reconstruct.” During this time, she extended her experimentation beyond the canvas, pushing artistic limits by constructing cardboard structures and incorporating found objects.
A special sneak peek inside the artist's studio.
Boyd’s new series, “Structures” began when she realized that her miniature cardboard houses became the theme of her collection of still-life paintings. In an interview with Stanek Gallery, the painter explains this discovery.
I wanted to paint still life and the lightbulb came on that my structures would be the central feeling of this body of work. Familiar and treasured objects belonging to me and family members, fabrics from my collection of remnants from around the world, the warmth of home, a welcoming place to enter, doors and windows to move around in, and the plants that often remind me of people in my life and the cycle of life itself. How can I hold these feelings of gratitude and joy in a more physical way than a memory? I can paint that feeling of course!
After assembling the emotive selection of a cardboard structure, plant, and object of memorabilia, Boyd sets the brush to canvas. As she moves along, the artist blends, blurs, and deconstructs her compositions, creating a representation of emotions that she feels from the subject matter, rather than a recognizable collection of objects.
Intrigued by the notion of objects serving as a painter's palette, Boyd’s created a new series of works, entitled “Fragments” - her most experimental collection yet. The inventory of found objects used to bring these pieces to life is boundless, including birch, wire, encaustic, cardboard, wax, cotton, linen, thread, screws, and the list goes on! There are 20 pieces in the series, each with its own one-of-a-kind combination of materials, making every piece unique.
Jacqueline Boyd, Fragments #2, 2022. Cardboard, acrylic on cotton,
broken key, twigs, rusty metal, and twine on birch, 13 x 13 x 1.5 inches.
Jacqueline Boyd, Fragments #13, 2022. Encaustic, cardboard, paper,
linen, wood, screws, rusty screen, and wire on birch, 15 x 15 x 1.5 inches.
Jacqueline Boyd, Fragments #10, 2022. Encaustic, cardboard, paper,
wax, cotton, linen, thread, screws, wire, and tape on birch, 15 x 15 x 1.5 inches.
Jacqueline Boyd, Fragments #6, 2022. Cardboard, paper, oil, acrylic,
lace, linen, tape, and rusty wire on birch, 15 x 15 x 1.5 inches.