Meet Jennifer Boyd | Multi-disciplinary artist who combines conceptual thought and humor to examine our lives lived digitally.

We had the good fortune of connecting with Jennifer Boyd and we’ve shared our conversation below.

Hi Jennifer, how has your background shaped the person you are today?
After several creative careers in my lifetime — Advertising Art Director, Limited-Edition Handbag Designer, Wardrobe Stylist — I moved with my family from Brooklyn, New York, to Los Angeles nine years ago. Feeling isolated in L.A. at that time, I went back to school to study Fine Art with an emphasis in Sculpture/New Genres at Otis College of Art & Design. Being back in school had me thinking intensely about where I’m from.

I was born and raised in Cupertino, California, which, at the time of my upbringing, had the moniker “Valley of the Hearts Delight,” since it was primarily an agricultural area made up of apricot and cherry orchards when my parents bought their house in 1961. Growing up, I witnessed the transformation of my sleepy, suburban community as its fertile soil became the birthplace of the Digital Revolution, leading to a new moniker: “Silicon Valley.” As I compared and contrasted the change of a community, our world and the differences of my youth with those of my two children who are digital natives, also known as GenZ or iGen, I became obsessed with making art about the subject of our collective lives lived digitally.

I find it funny because growing up I couldn’t wait to get out of Cupertino and to some place more gritty and urban but now I can’t leave it…nor can any of us with our cell phones embedded into our palms. We all live in Cupertino now.

Let’s talk shop? Tell us more about your career, what can you share with our community?
I’m very grateful that I had the opportunity to go back to school and continue on this creative path my life has had me on. My age afforded me the ability to be totally invested in my education and now I can definitively say I’m where I’m supposed to be and doing what I’m supposed to be doing. I’m healthily obsessed with the whole process. I love the research, the learning, the making, honing skills, finding new ones and meeting interesting and equally obsessed people along the way. Los Angeles is rich in resources especially because of the movie industry and that has served me well with the work I’m currently creating.

Of course, on occasion, I wish I would have arrived at being a fine artist earlier in my life and to be further along in my career, but I also laugh at the thought of what in the world I’d be trying to work out in those younger paintings or sculptures of mine if they did indeed exist. I also worry about how quickly a younger me would have given up in this highly intense rejection prone environment of the art world.

I feel more confident in what I’m doing now than with anything else I did before and I have my age and curiosity to thank for that. I’m a young emerging artist in a middle-aged body and that’s definitely a conundrum but also a fun conundrum to exist within.

Any places to eat or things to do that you can share with our readers? If they have a friend visiting town, what are some spots they could take them to?
I can be nostalgic so I might romanticize the Los Angeles of time’s past. A movie at Mann’s Chinese Theater. Dinner at Musso & Frank. Driving on Sunset Boulevard at night. A drink at The Dresden. Places with history and a little grime are always my favorite places to go. But contradictorily, I also like a good one-stop, multi-purpose spot like Hauser & Wirth where you can people watch, see some art, look at books, catch an artist or author talk and then have a good meal at Manuela’s or walk down the street for a bite. I could say the same for an afternoon spent at the Hammer Museum or LACMA. I think that’s me looking for a New York vibe where you can do five things in one block and you don’t have to get in your car and drive to that next that. That’s a great day in Los Angeles.

Shoutout is all about shouting out others who you feel deserve additional recognition and exposure. Who would you like to shoutout?
I wouldn’t be on this path of an artist without the support of my family. In this precarious and vulnerable space of making art, my husband and kids are my steadfasts.

I was/am also very lucky to have the artist Soo Kim as my Mentor at Otis College of Art & Design. She continues to support and nurture outside of the Otis space and I would say she is now a friend, too. My first group show away from school was because of Soo. She was curating a show for the gallery Council Street, and she asked me to be a part of it. I am forever grateful to have Soo in my life.

I also have to mention the artists Rachel Lachowicz and Whitney Bedford. My studio is sort of sandwiched between their studios and they graciously check in and give words of encouragement. To get such an intimate look at their daily and rigorous art practices is really inspiring. To have any amount of the success of the three mentioned is my goal.

Website: www.jenniferboyd.studio

Instagram: @jenniferboyd.studio

Image Credits
Evan Bedford Jeff McLane