Dawn Williams Boyd’s “cloth paintings” sheer size adds to their larger-than-life, often brutal subject matter. Her exhibition, Woe, is a collection of works that reflect a lifelong critique of social injustices and racial violence, epic battles with misogyny, and physical and psychological abuses of power. There is no such thing as neutral history. Using scraps of fabric, needles, and thread as her tools, Boyd painstakingly “paints” the entire surface of her quilts, layer upon layer, cutting, sewing, endlessly repurposing, building the surface into a formidable, authoritative source that pulls no punches. Boyd charges seamlessly between a myriad of narratives, both distant and recent, collaging together monumental moments of American history that are so often ignored or lost. The work informs and connects people, and is as humorous and generous as it is unflinching and gut-wrenching. Be it accounts from the past or warnings for the future, Boyd’s paintings bring an overwhelming sense that struggle is timeless. TEST
Woe is curated by Daniel Fuller for the Dodd Galleries at the University of Georgia.
Dawn Williams Boyd: Woe is made possible through a grant from The Coby Foundation, Ltd. and the Lenore Tawney Foundation.