13 Year Retrospective is Gabriel Boyce’s final solo exhibition as a member of Vox Populi Gallery.  On view will be a selection of works Boyce has exhibited at the gallery since his membership began in 2004. Over the past decade Gabriel Boyce has had a total of nine solo exhibitions at Vox Populi Gallery.  His work has graced the galleries of the now demolished building Vox Populi shared with The Fabric Workshop Museum and various other artist studios on Cherry Street. He was a part of constructing the four gallery spaces currently at 319 N 11th. St that is now home to many collective run gallery spaces. He has worked with five executive directors and over sixty collective members. The work put into helping Vox Populi thrive through change and collective initiatives is an unexhibited labor. The artwork produced for exhibition are the fruits of that labor. 13 Year Retrospective is mockingly part institutional critique and part celebration.  It is about a local artist given the opportunity to have such a catalog of artworks.  Artworks which were given the chance of consistent linear development over a thirteen year period based on the exhibition schedule of Vox Populi gallery.

Gabriel Boyce at the heart of it is a conceptual artist living in a postmodern art world. His artworks include various forms and mediums conceived through ideas in response. Often times they are art historical representations of classical modernism referencing artworks by Rauschenberg, Yves Klein, Brancusi and Naum Gabo. Some works are serendipitous points of departure through stream of consciousness. Sculptures like; a dog covered in shirts, a wine glass covered in lipstick and cheese or pillow cases covered in drool, are manifestations of the artist’s inspired moment. Other sculptural works are response directly to the artist’s appreciation of craft and material. Where form meets function, Boyce’s sculptures, are representations of where form meets material. Notably referenced in each installation over the years are artworks which represent the artist’s own physicality with artworks that are sourced, made and hung specifically to the artist’s height. For example, with House the artist lovingly remakes a cardboard model of the house he grew up in to scale as a distant memory. It is through those slight gestures, Boyce additionally aligns within a practice of minimalist art.

13 Year Retrospective is an exhibit that is a rare opportunity for the viewer because it is to see an extensive catalog of art made by a Philadelphian who is an artist’s artist. The thread that bares is a personal narrative of someone who works in museums, commercial galleries, collectives, friend’s garages and his kitchen.

Gabriel Boyce is an artist living and working in Philadelphia.