Boyd won The Shell Waterloo Painting 1981 prize, a major competitive commission awarded by Shell UK to produce a painting measuring 3 m x 10 m for exhibition above the South Bank exit of London Waterloo station. Filmed by the BBC throughout its progress in the studio and on site, the result was a large canvas entitled Generation of Alternatives. The same year she exhibited in Summer Show 1, along with Andrew Darke, Andy Goldsworthy and Steve Joy at the Serpentine Gallery, London. Boyd concentrated on colour field painting until 1990 when ideas concerning the interdependence of time, memory and consciousness demanded a new medium able to express the inherent temporal nature of these concepts. Light itself would replace paint while in the drawings, charcoal dust would become the primary medium. Beginning with the series, Water Course i–iii using plaster dust, mirror and projected light, Boyd's installations would experiment with refraction and reflection. In 1995, Boyd exhibited To the Warder of Things Present, a solo exhibition at Stichting de Achterstraat, Hoorn, Netherlands. In 1999 she exhibited Out of Bounds in May Show at the British School at Rome. Also that year, in No Added Sugar, a group show with Kate Davis and Terry Smith curated by Roberto Annecchini at Change Studio d'Arte Contemporanea, Boyd exhibited It was Today and in Grottesche curated by Domenico Scudero she exhibited Gathering Worlds at Ex-chiesa di S. Stefano, Tivoli. Boyd's site-specific installation, Chancing the Circle was installed in the Pantheon, Rome in May 1999. One example of her use of natural light and mirror is Perfect Stranger, which explores, at a particular moment, the sense of place contained within the surfaces and cavities of a moulded ceiling. Boyd exhibited with Tessa Garland in Seeing Things, a group show at Newlyn Art Gallery, Cornwall. Boyd's Living MemoryArtspace Sydney, Australia and Grounded in Time 1989 University of SurreyGuildford, UK are examples of solo exhibitions which featured large-scale drawing installations. Boyd's work, Water Haulage iii was selected for the 10th Cleveland International Drawing Biennale. In conclusion of a Residency at the Warburg Institute, University of London, Boyd exhibited two works Double Volume and Palindrome, a transcription of Las Meninas by Diego Velázquez. In 2006 Boyd returned to the University of London as Leverhulme Trust Research Fellow to engage in a new work entitled Concrete Liaisons, a major light-based installation for the facades of Senate House Tower, Malet Street London. In 2011 she was appointed Brown Foundation Fellow, a fellowship programme administered by the Museum of Fine Arts Houston at Dora Maar House, Ménerbes, France. Boyd's installation Vacant Possession was sited on the ground floor of former home of surrealist photographer Dora Maar.
