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Sonia Boyce OBE

born 1962

The Audition 1997, printed 2018
© Sonia Boyce
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Biography

Dame Sonia Dawn Boyce (born 1962) is a British Afro-Caribbean artist and educator who lives and works in London. She is a Professor of Black Art and Design at University of the Arts London. Boyce's research interests explore art as a social practice and the critical and contextual debates that arise from this area of study. Boyce has been closely collaborating with other artists since 1990 with a focus on collaborative work, frequently involving improvisation and unplanned performative actions on the part of her collaborators. Boyce's work involves a variety of media, such as drawing, print, photography, video, and sound. Her art explores "the relationship between sound and memory, the dynamics of space, and incorporating the spectator". Boyce has taught Fine Art studio practice in several art colleges across the UK.

In March 2016, Boyce was elected to the Royal Academy of Arts in London, becoming the first black female Royal Academician since the academy's founding in 1768.

In February 2020, Boyce was selected by the British Council to represent Britain at the Venice Biennale 2022, the first black woman to do so. In April 2022, Boyce won the Venice Biennale's top Golden Lion prize with her work Feeling Her Way.

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Postcolonial art

Artworks

  • The Audition

    Sonia Boyce OBE
    1997, printed 2018
  • Missionary Position II

    Sonia Boyce OBE
    1985
  • From Tarzan to Rambo: English Born ‘Native’ Considers her Relationship to the Constructed/Self Image and her Roots in Reconstruction

    Sonia Boyce OBE
    1987
  • Exquisite Cacophony

    Sonia Boyce OBE
    2015

Artist as subject

  • Missionary Position II

    Sonia Boyce OBE
    1985
  • From Tarzan to Rambo: English Born ‘Native’ Considers her Relationship to the Constructed/Self Image and her Roots in Reconstruction

    Sonia Boyce OBE
    1987

Film and audio

  • Interview

    Sonia Boyce: ‘Gathering a history of Black women’

Features

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    Understanding Diaspora Through Art

    Aïcha Mehrez

  • Look Closer

    Explore From Tarzan to Rambo

  • List

    Five Artworks Which Explore Caribbean-British Experience

    Jessica Wilson

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