M a r t i n   B o y c e

b. 1967, Hamilton, Scotland
Lives and works in Glasgow, Scotland

Martin Boyce Our Love is Like the Earth, the Rain, the Trees and the Birth 2003 (installation view) Courtesy of the artist

The city surfaces in Martin Boyce’s work as both dream and physical presence. In the installation Our Love is Like the Earth, the Rain, the Trees and the Birth (2003), industrial materials like fluorescent strip lights and powder-coated steel, chain link fencing and ventilation grills are loosened from their quotidian roles to describe the signs and forms of a dreamlike urban landscape. Floating tree-like sculptures made with fluorescent tube lights hover inches from a floor on which two low, black steel daybed frames sit. A litter bin treated with the warped perspective of a Dutch trompe l’oeil painting exudes pent-up velocity in sharp contrast to the markedly still environment, while a mobile made of two black, Miro-esque shapes and what looks like a tribal mask, all originally part of a Charles and Ray Eames leg splint, rocks quietly above one of the daybeds in the current from the building’s air conditioning system. Around the walls, ventilation grills placed close to the floor map the space, each with one of these words etched into the grills: before, behind, between, above, below. Distilling elements of familiar, anonymous urban environments, often appropriating iconic visual languages of classic modernist design, cinema or architecture, Boyce weaves a complex web of associations around these sites in a process of describing and abstracting cultural and social spaces. The disquieting balance of opposites, of intimacy and distance, interior and exterior, beauty and tension within his installations seems to amplify the unlocatable anxiety, paranoia and dysfunction in contemporary cities at the same time as it encourages an almost nostalgic reverie.

Martin Boyce Our Love is Like the Earth, the Rain, the Trees and the Birth 2003 (installation view) Courtesy of the artist

Martin Boyce Our Love is Like the Earth, the Rain, the Trees and the Birth 2003 (installation view) Courtesy of the artist

Selected Solo Exhibitions
2003 Our Love is Like the Earth, the Sun, the Trees and the Birth, Contemporary Art Gallery, Vancouver, BC, Canada. Roma, Roma, Roma, Rome, Italy. 2002 Our Love is Like the Flowers, the Rain, the Sea, and the Hours, Tramway, Glasgow, Scotland. For 1959 Capital Avenue, Museum für Moderne Kunst, Frankfurt, Germany. 2001 Martin Boyce Els Hanappe Underground, Athens, Greece. 2000 Martin Boyce, Jerwood Gallery, London, UK. 1999 When Now is Night, Fruitmarket Gallery, Edinburgh, Scotland.

Martin Boyce Our Love is Like the Earth, the Rain, the Trees and the Birth 2003 (installation view) Courtesy of the artist

Martin Boyce Our Love is Like the Earth, the Rain, the Trees and the Birth 2003 (installation view) Courtesy of the artist

Selected Group Exhibitions
2002 Non places, Frankfürter Kunstverein, Frankfurt, Germany. My Head is On Fire but my Heart is Full of Love, Charlottenborg Museum, Copenhagen, Denmark. 2001 Here and Now, Aberdeen City Art Gallery, Aberdeen, Scotland. Trauma, National Touring Exhibition organized by the Hayward Gallery, London, UK, for the Arts Council of England. Zero Gravity, Kunstverein für die Rheinlands und Westfalen, Düsseldorf, Germany. 2000 What if, Moderne Museet, Stockholm, Sweden. British Art Show 5, Inverleith House, Edinburgh, Scotland. Beck’s Futures, Institute of Contemporary Arts, London, UK. 1999 Word Enough to Save a Life Word Enough to Take a Life, Clare College Mission Church, London, UK. Anarchitecture, De Appel, Amsterdam, The Netherlands. If I Ruled the World, Living Art Museum, Reykjavik, Iceland. 1998 Strolling, Museum of Modern Art at Heide, Melbourne, Australia. Nettverk Glasgow, Museet for Samtidskunst, Oslo, Norway. 1997 Material Culture, Hayward Gallery, London, UK. Airport, Photographers Gallery, London, UK. 1996 Life/Live, Museé d’Art Moderne de la Ville de Paris, France. Wallpaper, Center for Contemporary Art, Glasgow, Scotland. 1995 Hopeless, Center for Contemporary Art, Glasgow, Scotland. 1994 Institute of Cultural Anxiety, Institute of Contemporary Arts, London, UK.

Martin Boyce Our Love is Like the Earth, the Rain, the Trees and the Birth 2003 (installation view) Courtesy of the artist

Further Reading
Archer, Michael, “Martin Boyce,” Art Monthly no.185 (Apr. 1995): 34-35
Bradley, Will, "Martin Boyce - Black Screen," Zero Gravity exh. cat. (Kunstverein für die Rheinlands und Westfalen, Düsseldorf, 2001): text available at: http://homepage.ntlworld.com/will.bradley/martin.html
Calcutt, John, “Urban Nightscapes at the Tramway: Martin Boyce,” The Guardian, Dec. 3, 2002: 18
Gidley, Tom, Martin Boyce, exh. cat. (The Fruitmarket Gallery: Edinburgh, Scotland, 1999)
Hess, Barbara, “Martin Boyce” Flash Art v.34 no. 216 (Jan.-Feb. 2001): 120
Larsen, Lars Bang, “Martin Boyce: Tramway,” ArtForum v. no. (Summer 2003):
Mottram, Jack & Martin Boyce, "About: Martin Boyce," (Jan. 2003)

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