Episode 114

Photo Credit: Ron Witherspoon

Ep.114 features Dawn Williams Boyd, She was born in 1952 in Neptune, New Jersey. She earned her BFA at Stephens College in Columbia, MO in 1974. The artist’s self-described “cloth paintings” masterfully reinterpret the traditional craft of quilt-making in a contemporary context. Working on a monumental scale, Boyd employs a collage-like technique, stitching together scraps of fabric into intricate compositions. Utilizing
art historical references, current events, and religious tropes as narrative frameworks, her cloth paintings chronicle seminal moments in African American history and quotidian scenes of Black American life. Inventively combining textures and patterns, Boyd’s compositions weave together history and allegory to create multivalent meanings from disparate sources.

Boyd’s work is included in the collections of the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York, NY; Equal Justice Initiative in Montgomery, AL; Birmingham Museum of Art in Birmingham, AL; Columbus Museum in Columbus, GA; Everson Museum of Art in Syracuse, NY; and the Richardson Family Art Museum at Wofford College in Spartanburg, SC. Her art has been exhibited at Wofford College in Spartanburg, SC;
Southwest Art Center in Atlanta, GA; Hammonds House Museum in Atlanta, GA; Bulloch Hall in Roswell, GA; Agnes Scott College in Decatur, GA; Callanwolde Fine Arts Center in Atlanta, GA; and Contemporary Craft in Pittsburgh, PA.

A multi-venue solo exhibition of the artist’s work, Dawn Williams Boyd: Woe, was recently on view at the Lamar Dodd School of Art’s Dodd Galleries, at the University of Georgia and at the Everson Museum in Syracuse, NY and will be on view at Sarah Lawrence College in Bronxville, NY in September 2022.

Artist https://www.dawnwilliamsboyd.com/

Fort Gansevoort Gallery https://www.fortgansevoort.com/

Sarah Lawrence https://www.sarahlawrence.edu/news-events/galleries/heimbold-gallery/on-exhibit.html

Everson Museum of Art https://everson.org/connect/virtual-talk-with-dawn-williams-boyd-ben-green/

Daily Orange https://dailyorange.com/2022/02/dawn-williams-boyds-exhibit-woe-crafts-fiber-art-timeless-historical-portrayals/

Atlanta Magazine https://www.atlantamagazine.com/news-culture-articles/dawn-williams-boyds-cloth-paintings-tell-stories-of-black-life-in-america/

Ocula https://ocula.com/artists/dawn-williams-boyd/exhibitions/

Metal Magazine https://metalmagazine.eu/en/post/interview/dawn-williams-boyd

Elephant Art https://elephant.art/dawn-williams-boyd-faith-ringgold-inspired-me-to-change-my-art/

Image credits: @ Dawn Williams Boyd, Courtesy of the artist and Fort Gansevoort, New York.

The Trump Era: American Gothic
2020
60 × 60 in
Assorted fabrics