Bio
Bianca Allende Boyd (from Encinitas, CA) is a mixed media artist who lives and works in Brunswick, Maine as a graduating senior at Bowdoin College. Bianca is interested in a wide array of interests as a coordinate major in Visual Arts and Education with a minor in Hispanic Studies. After focusing her visual arts studies in the practice and process of printmaking for the past four years, she has enjoyed finding ways to integrate her experience and love for embroidery, sewing, and textiles to her most recent work.
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Artist Statement
Amidst the backdrop of a pandemic, humanity has been forced to confront the fragility of the physical body. Mortality. The inescapable and universal death.
Through the grieving process, how might a desire for immortality be born? How is it that myth and legend are relegated opposite science, but they have all built extensive narratives around immortality? How are these narratives diffused into media and collective culture? Why is it taboo to search for immortality? I situate my work within the exploration of these questions and the tension that exists between grief, fear, darkness and a colorful humor.
With a background in printmaking and a passion for sewing and embroidery, I mix media — equally inspired by the potential for creating pattern with relief printing and the unique nature of a single stitch. My process is improvisational and intuitive, building layers of material and allowing freedom to abandon templates and plans. Ultimately, I desire to create an experience and environment that a viewer can immerse themselves within, organically building installation work by integrating sculptural elements.
Curatorial Statement
In the midst of a pandemic, artist Bianca Allende Boyd presents a body of work that considers how death is both a deeply personal and collective experience. Bianca approaches the subject of mortality with her entire life of practicing art: she took sewing classes for eight years as a child, learned printmaking in college, and returned to embroidery as her chosen hobby during lockdown. Exploring the various materials in one of Bianca’s compositions–glass beads, friendship bracelet string, and bubble wrap print–is a gratifying journey into the past. Bianca approaches dark subject matter with an imaginative eye and engages the viewer to do the same. Her eyes are printed onto sheets that cover an entire wall, but they stare out with indifference. Appreciating Bianca’s work is an act of defiance; we are mere mortals, but both artist and viewer can delight in the act of creation.
–Sydney Reaper