ABOUT

Jonathan Boyd is a multi-award winning Artist and Jeweller working in a variety of materials specialising in conceptual and narrative-led jewellery and object. He views jewellery as a vital art form in understanding our connection to the material world and the external realities beyond our subjective perspective. Here, Jonathan believes that jewellery acts as a complex binary acting between a public language/sign and as a personal/intimate relationship to the material world. For these reasons, Jonathan views jewellery as an important socio-political art-form. Two recent exhibitions highlight a unique approach to jewellery. The recent exhibition, Emergent Thoughts of the Topophilic Line at Gallery Marzee Thoughts between the Land and the Sea: Raising Doggerland, explored these socio-political opportunities exploring narratives of identity, language & otherness, politics and building polarisation on a small and increasingly isolated island.

 

Over the past decade, Jonathan Boyd’s practice has sought to explore and understand the actions of language, narrative and communication through the form of objects and jewellery. Through his creation of three-dimensional text forms, he has used words as elastic carriers of meaning where signifying texts and things are in constant dialogue. Jonathan employs an array of materials and processes creating these works, with each new piece advancing the technological possibilities of the jewellery form. Hand fabrication and digital process go hand-in-hand reflecting hypermodern times. Works from this exhibition experiment with the use of digital image and film within jewellery, complex casting techniques and industrial and printing techniques.

 

Jonathan is the Reader in Jewellery as well as the Head of Applied Art ( a remit that includes the Jewellery and Metal and Ceramics and Glass programmes) at the Royal College of Art in London. He is an active practitioner and researcher in the areas of Jewellery and Metal. Jonathan Boyd lives and works in London. Jonathan is a graduate of The Royal College of Art and The Glasgow School of Art, where he was a lecturer for eight years. Jonathan has designed several major design projects including designing the 2014 Commonwealth Games Medals and recently the new RCA Chancellors Circle for RCA chancellor Jonny Ive. In 2014 Jonathan designed and was lead fabricator on the 2014 Glasgow Commonwealth Games medals, pins, packaging and VIP commemorative coins. His work can be found in the private and public collections internationally, including; Boston Museum of Fine Arts USA, The V&A Museum London, Spencer Museum USA, Nelson-Atkins Museum USA, The Transport Museum Glasgow, The Scottish Parliament, The Worshipful Company of Goldsmith’s, The Royal College of Art and Glasgow School of Art.

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Jonathan is represented in the United Kingdom by Gallery SO and in the Netherlands by Gallery Marzee. 

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