Boyd Webb was born in Christchurch, New Zealand, in 1947. He attended the Ilam School of Fine Arts and the University of Canterbury School of Fine Arts (from which he graduated in 1971) in his native city before moving to England where he enrolled at the Royal College of Art in London (1972–1975).
Initially a sculptor creating forms out of fibreglass, he eventually transitioned to photography and film. This change of approach and medium, which shaped most of his career, can be broken down into three distinct periods.
The first period, which began in the 1970s, combined images and text in a bid to explore humankind’s need to analyse.
The following decade was dedicated to photographic installations bringing together false settings and real walk-on actors harmoniously combined into various tableaus through plays on depth and perspective. The contrast of the various components have led these works to be described as natural history museum dioramas. Their subject: the study of human folly. The theatricality and evident artificiality conferred the ensemble a playfulness, as the photographer would highlight the strings behind his visual manipulation. This era of his career is the best known and most celebrated, and led him to be shortlisted for the Turner Prize in 1988.
Finally, since 1990, the illusionist nature of previous compositions has been accentuated to a musicographic or scientific degree, erasing all traces of optical trickery and construction.
After the turn of the century, he turned to film, namely presenting – to a lukewarm reception – a short-film entitled Horse and Dog, which was shown at the Estorick Collection in London in 2003.
His most notable solo exhibitions include: Whitechapel Art Gallery, London (1978); Whitechapel Art Gallery (1987); Directions, Hirshhorn Museum, Washington D.C. (1990); Boyd Webb, Brighton City Art Gallery and touring (1994); and Auckland Art Gallery and touring (1997), in addition to shows at the Centre Pompidou in Paris, the Stedelijik in Amsterdam and the Hirshhorn Museum in Washington, D.C.
Webb lives and works in Brighton.
