What to know<\/p>\n
Brandon Boyd debuted a new collection of abstract paintings in Toronto, created in an intense four-week burst after relocating from fire-affected Los Angeles.<\/p>\n
The works feature acrylic and oil pastel in a cohesive palette of blacks and neutrals, with themes inspired by nature, mycelial networks, and even Tolkien audiobooks.<\/p>\n
Boyd is simultaneously finishing a new Incubus album, continuing a year marked by creative momentum and major personal transitions.<\/p>\n
Incubus frontman Brandon Boyd was in Toronto over the summer headlining Budweiser Stage, performing their 2001 seminal album, Morning View, in its entirety, and last week he was back in the city to promote his new art collection, which is showing at Taglialatella Galleries, in Yorkville, until Nov. 27.\u00a0<\/p>\n
The California native who once designed his band\u2019s gig fliers had his first solo exhibit back in 2008. This latest collection of abstract paintings \u2014 acrylic on canvas with oil pastel blooming and moving with intricate and precise lines using a similar colour palette of blacks and neutrals \u2014 was created in about four weeks, Boyd told Now Toronto. They are priced from $8,500 USD to a limited-edition signed print for $150 USD.<\/p>\n
From fleeing the Los Angeles fires to a lesson in plant life\u2019s mycelial networks, and some unexpected inspiration from J.R.R. Tolkein, Boyd pulled over in his car on the way to the recording studio to chat with Now about his latest paintings.<\/p>\n
I love the motion of this collection and the similar colour palette. When you set out to do these new pieces, did you envision it as a collection?\u00a0<\/p>\n
No. The original idea was to take existing pieces that Taglialatella Galleries had in New York at their Chelsea gallery and bring that to Toronto, and then I would do a couple of pieces to pepper into that show, but I have been amidst some spectacular movement, literally and figuratively, this year. It\u2019s been a really, really wild year for so many reasons.\u00a0<\/p>\n
What kind of movement? <\/p>\n
I\u2019ll just tell you that my family had to evacuate where we lived in Los Angeles in January because of the crazy fires that we had. And so, we fled north, and some friends took us in. We had to be up there for like a month.<\/p>\n
Our home survived by the skin of its teeth, but something in us kind of broke around having to evacuate so often from where we lived in Los Angeles. So, we decided to stay. We moved like an hour north of Los Angeles. So there was that movement.<\/p>\n
And so for the purposes of our conversation, I\u2019ll just tell you that I set up a new painting space in the garage of our new home and something just clicked in and I ended up doing 10 paintings in a very short period of time. So, we just decided that that was the show. And it was very honest. It was very immediate. The paintings that you saw all happened in about a four-week period.<\/p>\n
At the opening reception, what are some of the things people saw in your paintings that you didn\u2019t see or that were left field?\u00a0<\/p>\n
You know, I spoke to a lot of people on the night of the opening, and the night before we did a talk at the Soho House there in Toronto. So, I\u2019m still digesting and assimilating all of the information of those couple of nights. [laughs] But, somebody made a comment that it reminded them of Middle-earth in the Tolkien sense. I found that so fun and so interesting because I almost never listened to music while I\u2019m painting; I usually listen to somebody reading to me or someone speaking, just to have a secondary activity at play, and through this whole series of paintings, I was listening to the Lord of the Rings, as narrated by Andy Serkis of Gollum fame. He also does a bunch of the other characters in that film. So, that was amazing that somebody saw what I was listening to.\u00a0<\/p>\n