the narrative he was creating. Already thinking about life and
death with the use of skulls in the paintings, his addition of
the endangered bees made the work reminiscent of an Albert
Einstein quote:
“If the bee disappeared off the surface of the globe then man
would only have four years of life left. No more bees, no more
pollination, no more plants, no more animals, no more man.”
The importance of bees has been a hot topic of discussion with
the recent decline in the bee population. Many have claimed
that, like Einstein said, without bees to pollinate our crops, we
will not be able to grow a suffi cient amount of food. Multiple
factors have led to the deterioration in the bee population, in-
cluding pesticides, habitat destruction, and colony collapse dis-
order—the phenomenon where the worker bees leave the hive
and the queen bee is left to fend for herself. Bees exist in a large
community, working together to create a successful hive. Once
the worker bees leave, the hive can no longer exist. There are
similarities between the art community and the colony of bees
and their hives. The artists, like the queen bee, cannot properly
function without the community.
In his most recent series, Pollinators, Nicholas Boyd expands
his investigation beyond just bees. Wasps, snakes, bats, and
birds all make appearances in these latest works. After about
a month of mentally creating the concept for a painting, Boyd
went into research mode, not only to fi nd visual references for
his paintings, but to also ensure that he was creating work that
is factually correct. In order to create his successful paintings,
he spends hours researching the topic of pollination and each
animal that he paints. What the animals eat, where they live,
which plants they pollinate, and how they interact with other
animals are all questions he asks before he considers the color
palette and composition. Boyd then completes one fi nal step
before he begins to paint. Because he works with a broad range
of color, he takes time to pre-mix every hue used. “I’ll make
the middle hue fi rst. Then I shift everything to white and shift
everything to Payne’s grey or dark black. To me, it just makes
sense” he says of this process. By using heavy-bodied acrylics
and a retarding agent, he is able to keep his acrylic paint wet
during the process. “Before retarding agents came to be, no one
was able to paint this way. It is fortunate that we live in this
time.” Some of the painters that Boyd looks to for inspiration
did not have this luxury of material versatility.
Rembrandt and Caravaggio are two classic painters that Boyd
references in his work. His painting To Bee Dead V draws di-
rect inspiration from Rembrandt. “Rembrandt would put his
fi gures in a large black hat and it would create a shadow and
contrast. I was playing around with that idea. I would love to
go and focus more on Rembrandt and Caravaggio, I just do not
have the luxury to study their art in person.” Boyd admits. Be-
cause of online resources, we now have access to more art than
ever before, and without looking at work through the internet,
he may not have been inspired to create art again. Still, he also
recognizes the importance of viewing art in person.
Locally, Boyd has shown his work at multiple locations includ-
ing Redefi ne Art Gallery, The Gallery at Avalon Island, City
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