To peer into one of Emily Boyd’s paintings is to be pulled into it — first by color, then by texture and patterns, and lastly, by the magnitude of time itself. Her abstract-pattern paintings take days, weeks, sometimes months to complete and are meditations on nature, movement, stillness and light. “Creating an art practice that intentionally asks me to slow down … that matters, especially in the world we live in today,” she says. “The process of creating is just as important for me as the finished product.”
A full-time artist and co-founder of OddStory Brewing Company, Boyd lives and works in Chattanooga after having studied visual arts at Covenant College. Each of her pieces begins as a hand-drawn grid with tiny, 3/16-inch squares that she paints one-by-one with repeating brush marks. Working on an upright canvas with watercolors, she lets gravity pull the water and pigment through the patterns, creating natural drips. Even though she defaults to colors of the ocean and sky, Boyd says she doesn’t have a favorite color, asking, “Is it weird to be an artist and not have a favorite color?”
Her piece “Dancing into Daylight” features painted patterns and stitched embroidery across torn paper and canvas. Deep blues and muted greys surround a burst of brightness in the center — symbolic of finding the light in the darkness. “I love that it feels unfinished, like you’re not quite sure what the next movement is going to be,” she says. “It feels like it’s growing or evolving, moving from dark to light, from night into day.”
Boyd’s presence on social media — with tens of thousands of followers — has allowed her art to be in continued conversation with its viewers, letting her reflect and evolve with real feedback. “It’s pushed me to talk about my work more,” she says, noting that the feedback has deepened her understanding of how people experience her art.
View more of Boyd’s work at emilyboydstudio.com or on Instagram, @emilyboydstudio.