Courtesy of Laura Steffan.
Artist Blake Boyd in front of work included in his "Swan Song" collection.
The language of cinema isn’t just an influence for Blake Boyd. It is part of his creative DNA. The subjects of his art, in painting and photography, are often drawn from pop mythology. Whether they be Disney icons, Star Wars villains, or the great artists and creatives of our time, each becomes a cast member in an autobiographical epic about memory, fame, and the fragile boundary between illusion and identity.
Boyd’s fascination with film began early, long before he became one of New Orleans’s most enigmatic visual artists. At sixteen, he left Slidell for Hollywood. He wanted to act, to step into the frame. Within days, he found himself behind the camera instead, photographing Johnny Carson. The single portrait became the opening scene of his career behind the camera.
From that moment on, Boyd was less an actor and more a director, curating and composing portraits and eventually short films to accompany his exhibitions at such hallowed galleries as Simonne Stern, Hall Barnett, and Arthur Roger. In his later photography projects—including The Photobooth Project, The Polaroid Series, and Louisiana Cereal—he captured the essence of New Orleans itself. In the wake of Hurricane Katrina, Boyd documented the most significant players of the disaster, capturing the city’s narrative frame by frame, person by person, in a series of portraits lauded by critics.
Boyd often describes his life in cinematic terms. He refers to his father as “Darth Vader,” viewing his own path as akin to that of Luke Skywalker, his art a duel between the sacred and the profane. One of his most haunting works, a portrait of Vader rendered in his own blood against white clay, feels like a Rorschach test from a psychological film still.
“Bunny 8,” courtesy of artist Blake Boyd.
Boyd studied at the feet of mentors who treated cinema as scripture. He and filmmaker Kenneth Anger shared an interest in the occult magic of Walt Disney, and his profound impact on the American ethos. Anger, who Boyd dubs his final mentor, profoundly influenced both his belief system and his plans for an eventual return to art after a long respite.
Anger among them, the cast of Boyd’s life includes some of the most recognizable figures in contemporary art. For fifteen years, he apprenticed with George Dunbar, founder of the original Orleans Gallery and considered the father of contemporary art in Louisiana. Dunbar introduced Boyd to the ancient practice of clay painting and gilding. Boyd taught himself the balance of clay and precious metals, the patience of layering, and the humility of process. Later, he combined that old-world craftsmanship with the energy of street art and the spectacle of pop cinema, creating a language of contrasts both refined and raw. Boyd has pushed the medium of clay and gilding to the bleeding edge of possibility, incorporating self-invented practices of mark and line-making that were previously viewed as impossibilities for the ancient media.
Boyd’s use of blood, gold, and clay make for a kind of cinematography through other materials. Blood, once used in ancient gilding, becomes his red filter, a means of giving himself fully to his artwork. It ties him to the body, to sacrifice, and to the physicality of storytelling.
His friendship with famed photographer Andrés Serrano introduced him to the performative and transgressive power of imagery; the shock, beauty, and moral tension that define great storytelling. Serrano photographed Boyd as a subject, shifting him from behind the camera to inside the frame.
Boyd’s use of blood, gold, and clay make for a kind of cinematography through other materials. Blood, once used in ancient gilding, becomes his red filter, a means of giving himself fully to his artwork. It ties him to the body, to sacrifice, and to the physicality of storytelling.
When Boyd paints Snow White in his own blood, he creates a meditation on mortality wrapped in the innocence of a fairytale. The result is visceral storytelling rendered through texture and hue, the kind of honesty filmmakers spend a lifetime chasing. His focus on Snow White, Pinocchio, and Mickey Mouse contemplates how others tell stories that are not their own, and how they capitalize from it. Disney did not actually write or create any of the characters of Boyd’s fascination. Mickey Mouse was conceptualized by Ub Iwerks, a name virtually lost to history. Snow White, Sleeping Beauty, and Cinderella were characters written by the Brothers Grimm, who themselves pulled from folklore. Pinocchio was a creation of Carlo Collodi. It was Disney’s ability to capitalize on the work and creativity of others, simply by signing the Disney name, that solidified his legacy and built an American empire.
In Boyd’s hands, pop culture becomes sacred iconography, proof that our modern myths—Disney, Lucas, DC Comics—are as lasting as the saints once glorified in fresco and reliquary.
"Châteauneuf du Blake,” courtesy of artist Blake Boyd.
Each of Boyd’s compositions could be read as a film still. The colors are saturated, the figures of legend. The narrative pulses just beyond the frame, clues and breadcrumbs left for the viewer to decipher. The result is a visual language entirely his own, part movie poster and part illuminated manuscript. It is no wonder his breakout Pinocchio show borrowed from the iconic poster of A Clockwork Orange.
At the peak of Boyd’s career, just as the film was rolling, the reel suddenly stopped. Boyd’s brushes went still, not from creative drought but from devotion. His wife, Ginette Bone, a gifted architect, professor, and former president of the Arts District of New Orleans, was diagnosed with early-onset dementia. She is more than his partner. She is his muse and collaborator, the quiet presence behind his Swan Series, a meditation on creatures who mate for life. When her memory began to fade, Boyd turned from creation to care.
Their story became an extraordinary love film of its own—two artists bound by imagination, facing the slow fade of memory together. “It’s still art,” Boyd says softly. “Just a different kind.”
When Boyd returned to the public eye during White Linen Night 2024 with Works from the Museum Collection: 1991–2014 at Boyd Satellite Gallery, critics hailed it as a homecoming, a reintroduction, a reminder that Boyd’s vision had never gone dark. The exhibition felt like a retrospective edited by its own subject, a filmmaker revisiting his greatest hits.
Every great film needs its sequel, and now, for the first time in more than a decade, Boyd is painting again. His studio, tucked above the blue façade of Orleans Gallery, hums with renewed purpose and the sound of a hand sander. He is preparing an entirely new body of work. “It’s a tribute,” Boyd says, “but also a continuation.”
In this next act, Boyd is looking backward and forward at once. He is hard at work on his April 2026 Orleans Gallery debut, titled Revisited: The Mickey Mouse Years 1987-2002 / An Homage to Kenneth Anger.
In Revisited, Boyd reckons with history, mentorship, and memory. Clay, water gilding, Disney, Dunbar, Serrano, Anger, and Warhol will all appear, refracted through the lens of Boyd’s lived experience and illustrated in his unwavering hand.
For New Orleans, his return is more than revival. It’s a premiere. The red carpet has been rolled out, the lights are dimming, the projector hums to life, and the next scene begins—shot on location, directed by memory, and starring an artist whose vision has never failed him.
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