studio and created photographs such asThe Conser-
vationist(1978) andRiver Crossing(1979) using a
limited number of props—including friends, collea-
gues, and neighbors—rather than staging his works
at real locations as had been the case inHerbert
Groves(1973) andMrs. Barnes(1976) in previous
years. During the 1970s, many artists, including Jeff
Wall and Cindy Sherman, also began to produce
constructed or staged photographs.
The images for which Webb has become best
known were developed during the 1980s and inves-
tigate the clash between nature and technology that
often results in a sense of helplessness and iso-
lation. These works are purely theatrical, witty
visions using actors and props, without darkroom
tricks and prior computerized effects, and include
works such as Lung (1983) andAbyssogramme
(1983). Webb’s cast, chosen according to their
physique and demeanor, are without defining char-
acteristics. Their anonymity symbolizes broader
humankind as they are juxtaposed with everyday
and found objects such as knitting needles, toast-
ers, telephones, old strips of carpet, and plastic
sheeting so that subject and object, nature and
culture are blurred. In creating these tableaux,
Webb takes on the role of director and utilizes
dramatic, shadowless lighting, exaggerated color,
and a grand scale to create fantastical scenes
where viewers are urged to suspend their disbelief.
From the mid-1980s, Webb began to move away
from using real people in his work and instead
employed materials that suggested his ideas more
obliquely. In particular, blow-up (but often deflated)
plastic animals became the protagonists of his works
toward the end of the decade in works such asPlant
(1989). While Webb also exhibited installations,
sculptural works, and films, still photography be-
came his primary focus from the mid to late 1980s,
while continuing to use sculptural and conceptual
strategies. Also at this time, Webb’s use of humor
and absurdity became increasingly bleak and the
already artificial quality of his nature tableaux took
on environmental and humanitarian subtexts. Many
of Webb’s photographs probe human anxieties as-
sociated with genetic engineering and those chal-
lenges to popularly held concepts of life, identity,
and nature. For Webb, there exists a parallel bet-
ween the manipulation of the image in photography
and of gene modification in plants and animals.
Many of Webb’s photographs examine the adverse
effects of technology and the threat of human exploi-
tation by constructing futuristic, though often dys-
topian worlds. While these works are rarely overtly
political, they reveal the powerful forces of metaphor
and humor. Webb’s photographs and their qualities
of a strange, often uncanny, familiarity have also
been compared with the sculptures of Americans
Eva Hesse and Louise Bourgeois.
From the early to mid-1990s, Webb’s interests
shifted toward human biology, fertility, and sex, as
well as the general, and sometimes abhorrent, inter-
ior workings of the human body. Webb’s lens also
moved from views of the cosmos to microscopic
slices of life in photographs such asZygote(1993)
andNonage(1995) where scientific photography
and microscopy show fetal shapes being nurtured
in a pretend laboratory. Rather than studying
scientific documents, Webb instead imagines what
lies immediately behind observable reality, as in
Entomb(1993) andCorona(1994), where wallpa-
per, latex, and plasticine are used to fashion blood
vessels, vulvas, and spermatozoa at the scene of
conception. To date, Webb has only exhibited one
image using digital manipulation,Asteroid and Kid-
ney Stone(1996), which was made as a backdrop to
accompany the artist’s filmLove Story(1996). The
photographs that Webb has created since the late
1990s, such asWrack Wring(1997), remain richly
colored, large scale in format, and evoke a dysto-
pian perspective on nature and biotechnological
progress. A retrospective of Webb’s photographic
and film work toured Australia, Asia, and Europe
from 1997 until 2000. Webb lives and works in
London, England.
KateRhodes
Seealso:Long, Richard; Sherman, Cindy; Wall, JeffBiography
Born Christchurch, New Zealand, 3 July 1947. University
of Canterbury Fine Arts (Sculpture), Christchurch,
1968–1971; Royal College of Art (Sculpture), London,
1972–1975; Associated with Anthony d’Offay Gallery,
London, 1981. Lives and works in England.Selected Individual Exhibitions
1976 Boyd Webb; Robert Self Gallery, London, England
1978 Boyd Webb; Konrad Fisher Gallery, Du ̈sseldorf, Ger-
many
Boyd Webb; Jean and Karen Bernier Gallery, Athens,
Greece
Boyd Webb; Whitechapel Art Gallery, London, Eng-
land
1979 Boyd Webb; Sonnabend Gallery, New York, New York
1981 Boyd Webb; Galerie LoyseOppenheim,Geneva, Switzerland
Boyd Webb; Auckland City Art Gallery, Auckland,
New Zealand
1984 Boyd Webb; Anthony d’Offay Gallery, London, England
1987 Boyd Webb: photographs 1981–1987; Whitechapel Art
Gallery, London, England
1989 Boyd Webb; Sonnabend Gallery, New York, New YorkWEBB, BOYD