max boyla

Unfolding enveloping dye on satin 130x250cm From my show Spooky action at a distance that closed a few weeks ago @palmer.gallery Delayed thanks to all who caught the show ♥︎ Title taken from lyrics in the Beach Boys song Feel Flows that features on the Surfs Up album (1971)

Last two days of 'Spooky action at a distance' Unfolding enveloping (left) Dye on satin 130x250cm Primordial stew (right) Enamel, dye, acrylic, and bleach on satin 140x200cm @palmer.gallery ♡

It's the last week to see 'Spooky action at a distance' ☆ Much love to everyone who has come to see the show ♡ We'll be hosting an in-conversation this Wednesday at 6.30pm with @tom_ss_morton and myself if you'd like to join us @palmer.gallery 'A lonely speck' 2026 Kitchen counter top, lightbulb, fixings, dark environment Dimensions variable Documentation by @studio_adamson

⏰ Last Week ⏰ It’s the final week to see Spooky Action at A Distance, Max Boyla’s (@actually_maxboyla ) solo exhibition at the gallery which closes on Saturday 21st February. 🔮 “Projected on to a gallery window, the elusive video piece Awake without prior notice (2026) takes its title from a line in the opening pages of Philip K. Dick’s classic sci-fi novel Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? (1968), in which the protagonist, a detective who hunts down rogue synthetic humans only to discover that he is, in fact, one of their number, experiences surprise at finding himself ‘awake without prior notice’ — an early clue to his real identity. Dick’s novel is a meditation, among other things, on what constitutes an authentic consciousness, and we might keep that in mind as we watch Boyla’s video. What at first glance appears to be footage of luminous galaxies forming and reforming in the black beyond is actually an accidental pocket recording made on the artist’s phone, during a cycle ride through London’s teeming streets. As with his paintings, there is no evidence of the artist’s hand, here, indeed apparently no will at work at all. Still, some unimaginably long and complex chain of cause and effect, beginning with the Big Bang some 13.8 billion years ago, resulted in this video being shot, at this particular point in the space-time continuum. We do not need to ascribe intention to the universe to marvel at what it creates — at the way it casually slips the stars into our pockets, and new thoughts into our minds.” Excerpt from Weird Science, an exhibition text by Tom Morton (@tom_ss_morton ). 🔮 [SLIDE 1] Awake without prior notice, 2026 53s video on loop, reflective surface [SLIDE 2] Unfolding Enveloping, 2025 Dye on satin 130 x 250 cm [SLIDE 3] Primordial Stew, 2025 Enamel, dye, acrylic and bleach on satin 140 x 200 cm 🔮 For any enquiries, please DM or email [email protected] 📬

🗯️ Max Boyla in Conversation 🗯️ Please join us for a conversation between Max Boyla (@actually_maxboyla ) and curator Tom Morton (@tom_ss_morton ) next Wednesday 18th February at 6.30pm to mark the closure of Spooky Action at a Distance, Max’s solo exhibition at the gallery. 🗯️ Tom Morton is a regular contributor to Frieze Magazine, ArtReview and Art Basel Stories and wrote the accompanying essay to Spooky Action at a Distance. He has curated over 70 exhibitions, both as a curator at the Hayward Gallery, London (UK) and Cubitt Gallery, London (UK) and as an independent curator. His recent and forthcoming exhibitions include ‘A Room Hung With Thoughts: British Painting Now’ at the Green Family Art Foundation, Dallas (US), and ‘You Must Change Your Life’ at Grimm, New York (US).

🪐 Spooky Action at A Distance 🪐 Max Boyla’s (@actually_maxboyla ) solo exhibition, Spooky Action at a Distance continues and will be running until 21st February. 🪐 “Boyla is a maker not only of discrete artworks, but of exhibitions as environments, and each piece in ‘Spooky action at a distance’ contributes to the show’s charged atmosphere, at once ominous and oddly alive, which the artist has likened to that of the ‘Zone’ in Andrei Tarkovsky’s masterpiece of Soviet sci-fi cinema Stalker (1979) — a hauntingly enigmatic terrestrial landscape in which the laws of Newtonian physics do not always obtain. At Palmer Gallery, we encounter the sculptures Everything inc. (2026) and A lonely speck (2026), which are respectively formed from an abandoned steel sink unit fitted with a coloured lightbulb, and a similarly junked length of black, monolithic, mica-speckled kitchen countertop, featuring a circular incision, and another bulb. From such seemingly unpromising detritus, the artist has created objects that suggest planets, or suns, or celestial wormholes, set into the endless firmament. Looking at these works, we get to thinking of vast shifts in scale, from the domestic to the cosmic, and of how certain forms repeat themselves across creation, from the micro to the macro. Examine Everything inc. closely, and we’ll note that the sink’s twinned bowl and drainer resemble the mathematical symbol for infinity: ∞. Given this, Boyla must have found the work’s punning title irresistible.” Excerpt from Weird Science, an exhibition text by Tom Morton (@tom_ss_morton ). 🪐 [1-2] Everything inc, 2025 Kitchen sink, lightbulb 48 x 91 x 25 cm [3-4] A Lonely Speck, 2025 Kitchen counter top, lightbulb, fixings 100 x 60 x 4 cm [5-6] Invisible Conference, 2026 Colander, rotating light, dark environment 34 x 34 x 18 cm 🪐 For any enquiries, please DM or email [email protected] 📬

Invisible conference colander, rotating light, dark environment dimensions variable, 2026 Installed in the gallery toilet as part of my show 'Spooky action at a distance' @palmer.gallery until the 21st of Feb ☆

Primordial stew enamel, dye, acrylic, and bleach on satin 140x200cm Showing in close succession to 'Unfolding enveloping' @palmer.gallery until the 21st of Feb. Spooky action at a distance ☆ Last image is a screenshot from Miracle Mile (1988), where I got the title for this work. Photography by @ritaolivesilva Install shots by @studio_adamson

New work for FAD, thank you for trusting me with this interview @actually_maxboyla “A few days after Max’s solo exhibition opened at Palmer Gallery, I’m on my way to meet him when I’m confronted with a discarded kitchen sink outside one of my neighbour’s houses. My mind returns to the very same metal and mass-produced sink at the entrance to his exhibition—a dark room gently lit by a lightbulb inviting your attention down an open drain. Later, Max will tell me he sees the sink as a portal, and I feel invited through this threshold again on my way to meet him. The title of his exhibition—Spooky Action at a Distance—references Albert Einstein’s description of quantum entanglement, where two particles become linked and share the same fate despite distance. Throughout the exhibition, the viewer is confronted with this duality of distance and influence. The large paintings appear like dancing molecules we are zooming into through a microscope, yet the scale makes us stand back to see the full picture. The paintings are bookended by ready-made objects: at the entrance is the kitchen sink, and at the end of the exhibition is a raised sink countertop with warm light glowing from a carved-out hole. It’s as if we’ve fallen down the drain and we are peering up at where we started, from the darkness below. These distant and slightly mystical elements to the show follow what Max refers to as invisible threads—appearing distant, but at the same time curiously connected. In our interview, we trace and discuss some of these threads that have influenced Max’s work.” Read the full interview by visiting the link in @worldoffad bio.