Arthur Boyd always dismissed the label of “artist” as a “phoney romantic” notion.

To Boyd, creating art was a way to draw attention to important social issues and, in his case, it was usually by means of symbolism. 

Both of Boyd’s parents were artists and he grew up in “Open Country," a residence/workplace/meetup spot for creative individuals. So he had a lot of early artistic influences and as a child was excited to take part in the family business. This led to a very young Boyd overfeeding a kiln fire which, his words, “mucked up” the glazing on the pottery for the whole batch. Though this memory stuck with him, he learned from his mistake, and continued to nurture his abilities, becoming the kid in school trading sketches for study help. Boyd initially struggled in school, but his mom intervened and put things on a better path for him. Essentially, she called out his teacher for completely missing her child’s artistic genius. Not long after, one of Boyd’s works was hung in the teacher’s office.

Unfortunately, Boyd wasn’t the only one in his family to have trouble with the pottery kiln’s fire. His father, Merric Boyd, was experimenting with new techniques which involved much hotter flames and ended up burning up a lot more than just the pottery, destroying the whole kiln and everything within. The experience weighed on his father mentally, leading to epilepsy in a time where it still wasn’t medically understood (people thought it was a demonic spirit interference). 

Being unable to understand what his father was going through stuck with him. Early hardships such as this left an impression on Boyd, and were perhaps part of what steered his art towards calling attention to injustices he saw around him. Specifically. Boyd often depicts the horrors of war through the use of biblical narratives. Nebuchadnezzar on fire falling over a Waterfall is one such example.

Though his paintings may be better known, Boyd also worked in pottery and ceramics. Even while painting, Boyd still had a potter’s instincts and was known to use his fingers to manipulate the oils in his paintings, similar to how one would shape clay.

After he married Yvonne Lennie, a fellow artist whom he met while serving in the military while he worked for the Cartographic Unit, he moved back to Open Country. There, he founded the Arthur Merric Boyd Pottery Workshop.

Near the end of his life, Boyd was commissioned by Time Magazine to do a painting for the cover of a special edition issue about environmental conservation in Australia, titling the resulting work Earth and Fire. A few years later, the Prime Minister of Australia named him “Australian of the Year” for his accomplishments in art and many years of philanthropy.