Dawn Williams Boyd

Dawn Williams Boyd’s "cloth paintings" sheer size adds to their larger-than-life, often brutal subject matter. This exhibition is a collection of works that reflect a lifelong critique of social injustices and racial violence, epic battles with misogyny, and physical and psychological abuses of power. There is no such thing as neutral history. Using scraps of fabric, needles, and thread as her tools, Boyd painstakingly “paints” the entire surface of her quilts, layer upon layer, cutting, sewing, endlessly repurposing, building the surface into a formidable, authoritative source. Boyd charges seamlessly between a myriad of narratives, both distant and recent, collaging together monumental moments of American history that are so often ignored or lost. The work informs and connects people, as humorous and generous as it is unflinching and gut-wrenching. Be it accounts from the past or warnings for the future, Boyd’s paintings bring an overwhelming sense that struggle is timeless.

Exhibition organized by Daniel Fuller for the Dodd Galleries, The University of Georgia

Dawn Williams Boyd

Dawn Williams Boyd was born in 1952 in Neptune, New Jersey. She earned her BFA at Stephens College, Columbia, MO in 1974 and currently resides in Atlanta, Georgia. She has exhibited widely in the Southeast and beyond. Her works are in the collection of The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, NY; The Birmingham Museum of Art, Birmingham, AL; The Everson Museum Of Art, Syracuse, New York; The Columbus Museum in Columbus, GA and the Richardson Family Art Museum at Wofford College in Spartanburg, SC. Boyd is represented by Fort Gansevoort, New York.

Artwork: Peaches and Evangeline: Bibbs County, FL 1942
2004 Mixed media, 72 × 53.5 in
Bill and Christy Gautreaux Collection, Kansas City, MO