Generating content from an unlikely array of sources—including music subcultures and the visual vernaculars of cattle ranches and barrooms—Will Boone (b. 1982, Houston) makes works whose graphic power is matched by their palpable physicality. His technical processes are informed in equal measure by the DIY ethos of punk and the precision of industrial manufacturing, and give rise to paintings, sculptures, and immersive installations. Boone pays particular attention to forms that emerge from social contexts with no clear association to art historical narratives. Taken as a whole, his work serves as a repository for archetypal, if fragmentary, expressions of contemporary life. And despite the ephemeral nature of many of his sources, Boone’s work retains a formal timelessness and clarity that connect it to a wide range of art historical traditions.
Will Boone has been the subject of solo exhibitions at David Kordansky Gallery, Los Angeles (2023); Karma, New York (2022); Contemporary Arts Museum Houston (2019); and Rubell Family Collection, Miami (2014). A major installation was featured in Desert X 2017, Coachella Valley, California (2017). Other group shows include Zombies: Pay Attention!, Aspen Art Museum, Colorado (2019); White Trash, Luhring Augustine Bushwick, Brooklyn, New York (2017); Prototypology, Gagosian, Rome (2016); Fétiche, Venus Over Manhattan, New York (2016); In Different Ways, Almine Rech, London (2016); and Love For Three Oranges, Gladstone Gallery, Brussels (2015). Boone lives and works in Houston, Texas.