What to know
- Brandon Boyd debuted a new collection of abstract paintings in Toronto, created in an intense four-week burst after relocating from fire-affected Los Angeles.
- The works feature acrylic and oil pastel in a cohesive palette of blacks and neutrals, with themes inspired by nature, mycelial networks, and even Tolkien audiobooks.
- Boyd is simultaneously finishing a new Incubus album, continuing a year marked by creative momentum and major personal transitions.
Incubus frontman Brandon Boyd was in Toronto over the summer headlining Budweiser Stage, performing their 2001 seminal album, Morning View, in its entirety, and last week he was back in the city to promote his new art collection, which is showing at Taglialatella Galleries, in Yorkville, until Nov. 27.
The California native who once designed his band’s gig fliers had his first solo exhibit back in 2008. This latest collection of abstract paintings — acrylic on canvas with oil pastel blooming and moving with intricate and precise lines using a similar colour palette of blacks and neutrals — was created in about four weeks, Boyd told Now Toronto. They are priced from $8,500 USD to a limited-edition signed print for $150 USD.
From fleeing the Los Angeles fires to a lesson in plant life’s mycelial networks, and some unexpected inspiration from J.R.R. Tolkein, Boyd pulled over in his car on the way to the recording studio to chat with Now about his latest paintings.
I love the motion of this collection and the similar colour palette. When you set out to do these new pieces, did you envision it as a collection?
No. The original idea was to take existing pieces that Taglialatella Galleries had in New York at their Chelsea gallery and bring that to Toronto, and then I would do a couple of pieces to pepper into that show, but I have been amidst some spectacular movement, literally and figuratively, this year. It’s been a really, really wild year for so many reasons.
What kind of movement?
I’ll just tell you that my family had to evacuate where we lived in Los Angeles in January because of the crazy fires that we had. And so, we fled north, and some friends took us in. We had to be up there for like a month.
Our home survived by the skin of its teeth, but something in us kind of broke around having to evacuate so often from where we lived in Los Angeles. So, we decided to stay. We moved like an hour north of Los Angeles. So there was that movement.
And so for the purposes of our conversation, I’ll just tell you that I set up a new painting space in the garage of our new home and something just clicked in and I ended up doing 10 paintings in a very short period of time. So, we just decided that that was the show. And it was very honest. It was very immediate. The paintings that you saw all happened in about a four-week period.
At the opening reception, what are some of the things people saw in your paintings that you didn’t see or that were left field?
You know, I spoke to a lot of people on the night of the opening, and the night before we did a talk at the Soho House there in Toronto. So, I’m still digesting and assimilating all of the information of those couple of nights. [laughs] But, somebody made a comment that it reminded them of Middle-earth in the Tolkien sense. I found that so fun and so interesting because I almost never listened to music while I’m painting; I usually listen to somebody reading to me or someone speaking, just to have a secondary activity at play, and through this whole series of paintings, I was listening to the Lord of the Rings, as narrated by Andy Serkis of Gollum fame. He also does a bunch of the other characters in that film. So, that was amazing that somebody saw what I was listening to.
I like reading when an artist titles abstract paintings because afterwards I’m like, ‘Yeah, that makes sense. I see that,’ like Plant Sex and Rapunzel’s Drain in your collection. Taglialatella Galleries is selling a signed limited-edition print that most people would find affordable [$150 USD]. What can you tell us about Networks #2 so buyers have some context?
I have a long fascination with nature, and flora and fauna of the place where I grew up.
I’m born and raised in Los Angeles, but I grew up and I’ve spent almost all of my time in Santa Monica mountains and the adjacent mountain ranges. So, it can be quite remote and when you say you’re from Los Angeles, it doesn’t really bring to mind these areas that are so rural that there’s nothing like cell service. But these are the places where I grew up and I still love these places dearly. So, I have a long fascination with fungi and mycelial networks [underground fungal threads that allow plants to share water and nutrients]. And so, that painting, when I was finishing it, it was bringing [that] to mind. Mycelium works like neurons. They look like neural connections when they’re reaching out and they’re branching and they’re sharing information and electrical impulses with forest networks. So, it occurred to me that this painting was networks, part one and part two.
Are you working on another collection?
I will be. My current obsession is finishing a new Incubus record. I’m on my way there right now. This is our last week of recording. We’ve been recording off and on for maybe the last six or seven months, but, all told, if we condense it into one sitting, it would probably be three months of recording. We thought we had a finished record, but then we went on tour, and we sat on it and we listened to it really intently, and decided that it wasn’t quite finished. And so, we’ve spent the last couple of weeks writing and recording a few more songs. We’re just putting the finishing touches on that. That, right now, is what my mind is obsessing [over].
Must be the same with painting. You step back and you’re like, ‘Oh, I think it needs a bit more blah-de-blah.’
Yeah. It really just hinges upon a feeling. You just know when something’s finished creatively. And if you don’t have that feeling of finality, you either abandon it or you keep digging.
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