Max Boyla

Edinburgh b. 1991

Max Boyla (b. 1991, Edinburgh) is a Scottish artist based in London who recently graduated from the Royal Academy Schools. Holding to a tradition that sees painting as an illusion, Boyla’s work can exist in a perpetual limbo: a place where the limited and real world mingles with the eternal and fictional.

His satin surfaces, a synthetic material derived as a petroleum byproduct, create tension, offering a lustre towards abstract cosmologies. Shorn of all sense of time and place, fantasies of the infinite collide with a questioning of a contemporary state of disillusionment.

Highlights of recent exhibitions include ‘Crying like a fire in the sun”, Workplace, London (2024, solo); ‘Slow Motion’, Des Bains, London (2023, duo); ‘Slivers in the Void’, Mamoth, London (2023, group); ‘Add More Fuel To Your Life’, Sim Smith, London (2023, solo); ‘Inside Out’, The Artist Room, London (2022, group).

EDUCATION
+2023-19 Postgraduate, Royal Academy Schools, London, UK
+2019-18 Turps Banana Correspondence Course, London, UK
+2014-10 BA Fine Art Painting, Gray’s School of Art, Robert Gordon University, Aberdeen, SC
+2010-09 BTEC Foundation, Telford College, Edinburgh, SC

SELECTED SOLO/DUO SHOWS
+2024 Crying Like a Fire in the Sun, Workplace, London, UK
+2023 Add More Fuel to Your Life, Sim Smith, London, UK
+2019 Star Diminish, Patriothall Gallery, Edinburgh, SC

SELECTED GROUP SHOWS
+2024 Land, Sea, Air, Palmer Gallery, London, UK
+2023 Nouvelle Vague, LBF Contemporary, London, UK
+2023 Touch-A-Touch-A-Touch-A-Touch Me, Berntson Bhattacharjee, London, UK
+2023 Slow Motion, Des Bains, London, UK
+2023 Silvers in the Void, Mamoth, London, UK
+2023 Tic Tac Toe, APT Gallery, London, UK
+2022 Some Kind of Delicacy, Hello Goodbye Gallery, London, UK
+2022 Saxifrage, Kupfer, London, UK
+2022 Inside Out, The Artist Room, London, UK
+2022 Dream Baby Dream (Paint Talk) (group), The Fitzrovia Gallery, London, UK
+2022 Premiums Interim 1, The Royal Academy of Arts, London, UK
+2021 The Unreachable Star, The Londoner Hotel, Leicester Square, London, UK
+2021 The Sound of Silence, Site-specific neon installation, The Royal Academy of Arts, Burlington Gardens, London, UK
+2021 Interim Show, The Royal Academy of Arts, London, UK
+2021 Disco, Fitzrovia Chapel, London, UK
+2020 Sunday Studios Auction, New York, US
+2021 Somewhere Else For a Little While, Eve Leibe Gallery
+2019 A High Hang, London, UK
+2018 Max Boyla, Haywood Gallery, Borough, London, UK
+2018 Velvet Ropes, Patrick Parrish Gallery, New York, US
+2018 GIFC, Fisher Parrish, Brooklyn, New York, US
+2018 Slightly Seared on the Reality Grill, Unit 5 Gallery, London, UK

AWARDS & RESIDENCIES
+2019-2020 Dewar Arts Award, Scottish International Education Trust
+2018 Creative Scotland Funding
+2016 RSA Benno Schotz Prize: the most promising work by a Scottish artist under 30 domiciled in Scotland, Royal Scottish Academy, Edinburgh, SC
+2014 The Carrem Trust Award, Gray’s School of Art, Robert Gordon University, Aberdeen, SC
+2013 George Davidson Art Trust Award, Gray’s School of Art, Robert Gordon University, Aberdeen, SC

Exhibitions

Gallery Exhibition

The Smoke That Thunders

Max Boyla

21.09.24 - 29.11.24

News

Artist and curator talk

Join us at Tube Gallery to kick off your Nit de l’Art journey! Artist Max Boyla & curator Sayori Radda are ready to inspire you with their talk on “The

New Contemporaries

Max Boyla, whose artistic practice has been making waves, has recently been honored as one of the selected artists for the Bloomberg New Contemporaries 2024. This prestigious exhibition highlights 35

Nit de l’art

We’re thrilled to share that we will be part of the Nit de l’Art Program taking place this 21st of September 2024 from 6 to 9pm. Come and join us!