Sonia Boyce facts for kids

Sonia Dawn Boyce (born 1962) is a British Afro-Caribbean artist and teacher who lives and works in London. She is a Professor of Black Art and Design at the University of the Arts London.

Sonia Boyce explores art as a way of connecting with people and looking at important discussions that come from this. Since 1990, she has worked closely with other artists. Her work often includes unplanned performances by the people she works with. Boyce uses many different art forms, like drawing, printmaking, photography, video, and sound. Her art explores how sound and memories are linked, how spaces feel, and how people watching her art become part of it. She has taught art for over 30 years in various art schools across the UK.

In March 2016, Boyce was chosen to be part of the Royal Academy of Arts in London. This was a big moment because she became the first Black female Royal Academician. The Royal Academy is a famous art institution that started in 1768.

In February 2020, the British Council chose Sonia Boyce to represent Britain at the Venice Biennale in 2022. She was the first Black woman ever to be chosen for this honor. In April 2022, Boyce won the top Golden Lion prize at the Venice Biennale for her artwork called Feeling Her Way.

Early Life and Education

Sonia Boyce was born in Islington, London, in 1962. She went to Eastlea Comprehensive School in Canning Town, East London, from 1973 to 1979. After that, she studied Art & Design at East Ham College from 1979 to 1980. She then earned a degree in Fine Art from Stourbridge College in the West Midlands from 1980 to 1983.

Artistic Career

Boyce uses many different materials in her art, including photography, installations (artworks that fill a space), and text. She became well-known in the 1980s as part of a time when Black British culture was celebrated. Her art also touches on feminism, which is about equal rights for women. Art expert Roy Exley wrote in 2001 that her work helped to change how Black or Afro-Caribbean art was seen in the main art world.

One of Sonia Boyce's first exhibitions was in 1983 at the Africa Centre, London. It was called Five Black Women. Her early artworks were large drawings made with chalk and pastel. These drawings showed her friends, family, and memories from her childhood. She often included patterns from wallpaper and bright colors linked to the Caribbean. Through these works, she explored what it meant to be a Black woman in Britain and the history behind that experience. She also took part in the 1983 exhibition Black Women Time Now.

In 1989, Boyce was one of four female artists in an exhibition called The Other Story. This was the first time British African, Caribbean, and Asian modern art was shown in such a way.

In her later artworks, Boyce started using different materials, including digital photography. She created composite images that showed modern Black life. Even though her focus seemed to move away from specific ethnic experiences, her art still explored what it was like to be a Black woman in a society that was mostly white. She also looked at how religion, politics, and ideas about gender shaped that experience.

In 2018, the Manchester Art Gallery held a special exhibition of her art. The gallery asked Boyce to create new work that would connect with their older 18th and 19th-century art. For this, Boyce invited performance artists to interact with these older artworks in a new way. During one of these events, the artists decided to temporarily take down a painting called Hylas and the Nymphs by J. W. Waterhouse. This led to a lot of discussion among visitors and in the news about art, rules, and how we understand artworks.

Sonia Boyce has taught art widely and uses workshops as part of her creative process. Her artworks can be found in many important national collections. These include the Tate Modern, the Victoria & Albert Museum, the Government Art Collection, the British Council, and the Arts Council Collection at the Southbank Centre.

In 2018, a BBC Four documentary film called Whoever Heard of a Black Artist? Britain's Hidden Art History featured Boyce. In the film, Brenda Emmanus followed Boyce as she traveled around the UK. Boyce highlighted the history of Black artists and modern art. Boyce also led a team to create an exhibition at Manchester Art Gallery. This exhibition focused on artists of African and Asian descent who have helped shape the history of British art.

In February 2020, it was announced that Boyce would be the first Black woman to represent the United Kingdom at the 59th Venice Biennale. She was chosen by the British Council to create a big solo exhibition. Emma Dexter, who directs visual arts at the British Council, said that Boyce's art was inclusive and powerful. She felt it was a perfect choice for this important time in UK history. Boyce first visited the Biennale in 2015. Her artwork, Feeling Her Way, won the Golden Lion at the 2022 exhibition.

Awards and Recognition

Sonia Boyce has received several important awards for her contributions to art:

• 2007: She was made a Member of the Most Excellent Order of the British Empire (MBE) in the Queen's Birthday Honours List.
• 2016: She was chosen as a member of the Royal Academy of Arts.
• 2019: She was made an Officer of the Order of the British Empire (OBE) in the New Year Honours.
• 2020: She was selected to represent the UK at the 59th Venice Biennale.
• 2022: She won the Venice Biennale's Golden Lion award for her artwork Feeling Her Way.

Personal Life

Sonia Boyce's partner is an art curator named David A. Bailey. They have two daughters together. In February 2023, Boyce was a guest on the popular BBC Radio 4 show Desert Island Discs.

Artistic Mediums

In her early years as an artist, Sonia Boyce used chalk and pastel to create drawings of her friends, family, and herself. Later, she began to use photography, graphic design, film, and caricature (drawings that exaggerate features). She used these to share strong political messages in her work. Adding collage to her art allowed her to create more complex pieces.

It's interesting to note Boyce's use of caricature. Historically, caricatures were often used to make fun of people by exaggerating their features. They could sometimes create negative ideas about the people they showed. By using caricatures in her own art, Boyce takes back this art form and uses it in her own way.

Artistic Message

Sonia Boyce's art often has political messages. She uses many different art forms within the same piece to share ideas about Black representation. She also explores how Black bodies are seen and challenges old ideas that came from scientific racism.

In her art, Boyce often shows the feeling of being alone when you are Black in a society that is mostly white. She explores the idea of the Black body being seen as "the other" (different and not belonging). She often uses collage to create art that tells a complicated history.

Boyce became a well-known artist in the 1980s during a time called the Black Cultural Renaissance. This movement grew out of disagreement with the conservative policies of Margaret Thatcher, who was the Prime Minister. Using this background, Boyce takes common ideas about the Black body and turns them upside down. Through her art, she hopes to change old ethnographic ideas about race that were common during and after slavery.

Exhibitions

Sonia Boyce has had many solo and group exhibitions around the world. Here are a few examples:

Solo Exhibitions

• Conversations, The Black-Art Gallery, London (1986)
• Sonia Boyce: recent work, Whitechapel Art Gallery, London (1988)
• Do You Want To Touch?, 181 Gallery, London (1993)
• Devotional, National Portrait Gallery, London (2007)
• Manchester Art Gallery (2018)

Group Exhibitions

• Five Black Women, Africa Centre, London (1983)
• Black Woman Time Now, Battersea Arts Centre, London (1983)
• The Thin Black Line, ICA, London (1985)
• From Two Worlds, Whitechapel Art Gallery, London (1986)
• The Other Story, Hayward Gallery, London (1989)
• Century City: Art and Culture in the Modern Metropolis, Tate Modern, London (2001)
• Migrations: Journeys into British Art, Tate Britain (2012)
• All the World's Futures, 56th Venice Biennale of Contemporary Art, Venice (2015)

Research Work

Sonia Boyce has also held several important research positions:

• 1996–2002: Post-Doctoral Fellow at the University of East London.
• 1996–2002: Co-Director of AAVAA (the African and Asian Visual Artists Archive).
• 2008–2011: Research Fellow at Wimbledon College of Art and Design, University of the Arts London. She worked on a project about how collaborative art changes over time, which led to the project The Future is Social.
• 2015–2018: Principal Investigator for Black Artists and Modernism (BAM). This research project looked at the work of Black British artists and modern art.

Selected Publications

Sonia Boyce has been involved in several important publications about art:

• Gilane Tawadros, Sonia Boyce: Speaking in Tongues, London: Kala Press, 1997.
• In 2007, Boyce, David A. Bailey, and Ian Baucom won the History of British Art Book Prize (USA) for their book Shades of Black: Assembling Black Art in 1980s Britain.
• Allison Thompson, "Sonia Boyce and Crop Over", Small Axe, Volume 13, Number 2, 2009.
• Boyce also helped edit the summer 2021 issue of Art History on Black British Modernism with Dorothy Price.