Mark Boyle (11 May 1934 – 4 May 2005) was a Scottish artist born in Glasgow and known for his work in the cultural UK Underground of the 1960s around the

Traverse Theatre The Traverse Theatre is a theatre in Edinburgh, Scotland. It was founded in 1963 by John Calder, John Malcolm, Jim Haynes and Richard Demarco. The Traverse Theatre company commissions and develops new plays or adaptations from contemporary pla ...

, and from 1985 exhibited with Joan Hills and their children Sebastian and Georgia as Boyle Family. Although Boyle Family have worked across a wide range of different media (including painting, photography, sculpture, film, projection, sound recordings and drawing), they are perhaps most well known for their Earth studies. These pictures – highly accurate painted casts that operate somewhere between painting and sculpture – involve the meticulous re-creation of randomly chosen areas of the Earth's surface using resin and fibreglass (as well as real materials collected from the original site) and have been exhibited internationally. Past shows have included the British Pavilion at the XXXIX

Venice Biennale The Venice Biennale (; it, La Biennale di Venezia) is an international cultural exhibition hosted annually in Venice, Italy by the Biennale Foundation. The biennale has been organised every year since 1895, which makes it the oldest of ...

in 1978, ''Beyond Image - Boyle Family'' (

Hayward Gallery The Hayward Gallery is an art gallery within the Southbank Centre in central London, England and part of an area of major arts venues on the South Bank of the River Thames. It is sited adjacent to the other Southbank Centre buildings (the Roy ...

, London) in 1986 and ''Boyle Family'' (

Scottish National Gallery of Modern Art The Scottish National Gallery of Modern Art is part of the National Galleries of Scotland, which are based in Edinburgh, Scotland. The National Gallery of Modern Art houses the collection of modern and contemporary art dating from about 1900 to th ...

, Edinburgh) - a major retrospective held in 2003. In addition to developing highly original casting techniques, Mark Boyle and Joan Hills also pioneered the use of

liquid light shows Liquid light shows (or psychedelic light shows) are a form of light art that surfaced in the early 1960s as accompaniment to electronic music and avant-garde theatre performances. They were later adapted for performances of rock or psychedelic m ...

during the 1960s. These projections played a seminal role in the development of the counter-culture of the period. The ''light environments'' were used to accompany stage performances by such artists as

Jimi Hendrix James Marshall "Jimi" Hendrix (born Johnny Allen Hendrix; November 27, 1942September 18, 1970) was an American guitarist, singer and songwriter. Although his mainstream career spanned only four years, he is widely regarded as one of the most ...

and jazz-rock pioneers

Soft Machine Soft Machine are a British rock band from Canterbury formed in mid-1966 by Mike Ratledge (keyboards, 1966–1976), Robert Wyatt (drums, vocals, 1966–1971), Kevin Ayers (bass, guitar, vocals, 1966–1968) and Daevid Allen (guitar, 1966–196 ...

. Amongst others he collaborated with are

George Brecht George Brecht (August 27, 1926 – December 5, 2008), born George Ellis MacDiarmid, was an American conceptual artist and avant-garde composer, as well as a professional chemist who worked as a consultant for companies including Pfizer, Johnson ...

Peter Schmidt (artist) Peter Schmidt (17 May 1931 – 22 January 1980) was a Berlin-born British artist, painter, theoretician of color and composition, pioneering multimedia exhibitor and an influential teacher at Watford College of Art. He was part of a generation ...

Cornelius Cardew Cornelius Cardew (7 May 193613 December 1981) was an English experimental music composer, and founder (with Howard Skempton and Michael Parsons) of the Scratch Orchestra, an experimental performing ensemble. He later rejected experimental music, ...

, and

John Tilbury John Tilbury (born 1 February 1936) is a British pianist. He is considered one of the foremost interpreters of Morton Feldman's music, and since 1980 has been a member of the free improvisation group AMM. Early life and education Tilbury st ...

References

External links

Boyle Family website, including chronology
1934 births 2005 deaths British conceptual artists Psychedelic artists Scottish contemporary artists {{Scotland-artist-stub