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Sonia Boyce (1962 - )
Sonia Boyce
(1962 - ) |
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Art Work
| Name: |
Sonia Boyce |
| Gender: |
Female |
| Place of Birth: |
London, England |
| Nationality: |
British |
| Birth: |
1962 |
| Death: |
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| Website: |
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| Past Auctions: |
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Quick Facts
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| Fine Art Profession(s): |
Painting
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Biography
Sonia Boyce is one of very few black women artists represented in the Tate Collection. Photographed by Don MacLellan in 1997 (National Portrait Gallery), she cupped her hands to her mouth as if about to call out, and she has vociferously condemned the exclusion of black artists from the histories of art.
Of her training at Stourbridge College of Technology and Art between 1980 and 1983 Boyce recalled: on the degree course the tutors were dismissive. "I was black, therefore I wasn't there. "I drew my feet very big on a patterned background, "I'm here, you can't wish me away". Being a black woman is a perpetual struggle to be heard and appreciated as a human being.''' Boyce sought out mentors, learning from the work of Frida Kahlo, and being taught by Margaret Harrison, whose feminist figurative practice had a strong influence upon her, and (briefly) by Susan Hiller. During this period some black artists had begun to organize in response to discrimination. The First National Black Art Convention was held at Wolverhampton Polytechnic in 1982, and there, Boyce met Lubaina Himid. Himid curated the exhibition Five Black Women held at the Africa Centre, London, a year later, which included Boyce and Veronica Ryan. Boyces work in this show was noticed by the critic Sarah Kent, and then exhibited in a group exhibition at the Gimpel Fils Gallery. London.
Boyce's early work was figurative. Drawn in pastel, it often incorporated boldly patterned fabric and wallpaper designs, raising questions about the role of the decorative in art. It also put black women, often the artist herself, firmly at the centre of the picture- In She Isn't Holding Them Up, She's Holding On (Some English Rose) (1986, Cleveland County Museum Service) she appears with her family, her dreadlocked hair and the roses printed on her dress, a commentary on the national ideal of femininity Boyce's work was shown in overviews of black art organized at this time: Into the Open, at the Mappin Art Gallery, Sheffield {1984), The Thin Black Line at the ICA London (1985), and The Other Story: Afro-Asian Artists in Post-War Britain, Hayward Gallery {and touring) (1989). She had individual exhibitions at the Black Art Gallery and Air Gallery in 1986, and Whitechapel Art Gallery in 1988.
By the late 1980s Boyce was making conceptual art in a variety of media including photography and installation. She often worked with text, in common with a previous generation of artists such as Jenny Holzer and Barbara Kruger, and a number of contemporaries, notably Tracey Emin. Having carefully composed titles for her pastel drawings, Boyce began increasingly to incorporate slogans culled from the media, the lyrics of popular songs, and her own writing. For The Photographers' Gallery exhibition The Invisible City in 1990, Boyce made The Ticket Machine- It dispensed postcards that gave verbal "snapshots' of a city shaped by individual experiences and desires. The pleasures and power relations implied in the act of looking became a key theme for Boyce. In 1993 the 181 Gallery, London, staged an exhibition of her work Do You Want To Touch? The viewer was invited to feel the sensual works on show, as in Plaited And Sewn With Red Satin Belly (1993), fashioned from fabric and hair. Two years later. Boyce's installation Peep at Brighton Museum imposed a veil of tracing paper between the viewer and the ethnographic exhibits. Having to peer through sections cut out by the artist made the act of looking suddenly selfconscious, these artifacts from other cultures could no longer be easily consumed by the visitor's eye.
Making art from everyday objects, Boyce covered Pillowcase (1990} with texts taken from lonely hearts advertisements. Black Female Hairstyles {1995) shows, against multi-colored backgrounds, a variety of hairpieces, from full wigs to the shiny twists and loops of different shades that are worn by some black women as accessories, changed according to event or outfit. Boyce has also drawn and photographed dreadlocks, plaits and white sitters wearing afro wigs, bringing the politics of identity into play. Along with sculptor Bill Woodrow and fashion designer Joe Casely-Hayford, she was invited by the London Printworks Trust in 1995 to work on the exhibition Portable Fabric Shelters, whose subject was homelessness. Boyce's installation included umbrellas, and a small tent which, she said, should 'appear as if you were getting into somebody else's head'.
Boyce became Co-Director of the African and Asian Visual Arts Archive, and has taught at a number of art colleges. In 1997-8 she was the first artist in residence at the University of Manchester, and her work was shown a
Image Courtesy Pogus Caesar/OOM Gallery Archive |
Samples of Work
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