Biography

Aberdeen-born Jonathan Boyd has been designing jewellery to wear since he was sixteen years old. He gained entry to Glasgow School of Art to pursue his passion for jewellery design, where he graduated with a first-class honours degree. He won the Richard Hubbard Memorial Prize while at the GSA.

Jonathan’s work is mostly narrative based and his most recent collection focussed on remembrance and personal memory. His degree show stood out from work by his contemporaries and compared convincingly with mature work by respected British and European makers.

Since graduation, Jonathan has produced both private commissions and exhibited at the major jewellery exhibitions and galleries, including Galerie Marzee (Holland), Dazzle’s Winter Exhibition in London and New Designers Section, which is an exhibition of the 50 best designers who exhibited at New Designers 2006. Jonathan was also runner-up for the 2006 Designer of the Year Award.

Pursuing an MA at the Royal College of Art is the next step for Jonathan to extend his technical skills and to develop conceptually.

How the Award Helped

The Dewar Arts Award will help finance Jonathan to pursue an MA in metalsmithing, goldsmithing, silversmithing and jewellery at the Royal College of Art, London.

Since the Award

During his two years at RCA, Jonathan won a number of prizes including the Wadesddon Manor Commended Award and Marzee International Graduate Award and, principally, the Theo Fennel Award for Overall Excellence at the RCA Graduate Show. He was also shortlisted for the Conran Award 2009. Since finishing his MA, Jonathan has exhibited in several high-profile galleries.

Alongside his creative work he returns to the Glasgow School of Art as a lecturer/tutor. Of his work, Jonathan writes that it “addresses themes of written language, text and the object and their complex and intricate relationships.”

April 2014: Jonathan designed the medals for the Glasgow 2014 Commonwealth Games (read more here)

January 2013: Jonathan’s work was exhibited as part of our Tenth Anniversary Exhibition, Roots to Shoots.