Sonia Boyce
Sonia Boyce OBE RA (b. 1962, London, UK) emerged in the 1980s as a key figure in the Black British art movement.
Sonia Boyce OBE RA (b. 1962, London, UK) emerged in the 1980s as a key figure in the Black British art movement. Her recent art practice is primarily concerned with the production and reception of unexpected performative gestures, with an underlying interest in how the personal, the aesthetic, and the political intersect. In 2019, the artist received an OBE for services to art in the Queen’s New Year Honours List, as well as an Honorary Doctorate from the Royal College of Art. In 2016, Boyce was elected a Royal Academician, and received a Paul Hamlyn Artist Award. Between 2012 – 2017, Boyce was Professor of Fine Art at Middlesex University and since 2014 she has been Professor at the University of the Arts London, where, as the inaugural Chair of Black Art & Design, Boyce has led a 3-year research project into Black Artists & Modernism, resulting in a BBC documentary Whoever Heard of a Black Artist? Britain’s Hidden Art History (2018).
Recent solo exhibitions include In the Castle of My Skin, Eastside Projects, Birmingham, UK (2020), touring to Middlesbrough Institute of Modern Art (MIMA), Middlesbrough, UK (2021); Sonia Boyce, Manchester Art Gallery, Manchester, UK (2018); Sonia Boyce: We move in her way, Institute of Contemporary Arts, London, UK (2017) and Paper Tiger Whisky Soap Theatre (Dada Nice), Villa Arson, Nice, France (2016). 2021 also saw the completion of Boyce’s major public art commission for London’s Elizabeth Line/Crossrail project, Newham Trackside Wall. Boyce also recently featured in Tate Britain’s Life Between Islands, Caribbean – British Art 1950s – Now. In 2015 she was included in All the World’s Futures, the International Exhibition of the 56th Venice Biennale, curated by Okwui Enwezor.
Her work is held in the collections of Tate, London, UK; Victoria & Albert Museum, London, UK; Arts Council Collection, London, UK; The Government Art Collection, London, UK; British Council Collection, London, UK and Pallant House Gallery, Chichester, UK.
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