(Waiter) 1981

Boyd Webb was born in Christchurch, New Zealand, in 1947. He attended the Ilam School of Fine Art at the University of Canterbury, Christchurch, from 1968 to 1971, and received a Master of Arts (sculpture) from the Royal College of Art, London, in 1975. Known for his clever combinations of the conceptual and photography, Webb has exhibited extensively on an international basis since 1975. He was represented in the 1982 fourth Biennale of Sydney, 'Vision and Disbelief'; and the Whitechapel Art Gallery in London showed a retrospective of his work in 1987. In early 2007 Sonnabend Gallery in New York staged 'Boyd Webb: works from the 1980s'. Webb has participated in numerous group exhibitions, mostly in Europe.

Although the ultimate product of Webb's work is a cibachrome photograph, 'his basic gesture - the making, photographing and destruction of flimsy, purpose-built sets - constitutes a critique of both photography and sculpture at the same time'.(1) His large photographs break down the boundaries between the real and the imagined, obliging us to suspend our sense of order and logic.

An air of charade permeates Webb's work of the early 1980s, using a varied cast of actors and range of props that are removed from their everyday circumstances and transformed in curious combinations. Very often, Webb's photographs can be read as contemporary moral tales, even though the lesson he is offering is not always readily comprehensible.

1. Morgan, Stuart. 'Global strategy' in Boyd Webb [exhibition catalogue], Whitechapel Art Gallery, London, 8 May-21 June 1987, p.10.