Sonia Boyce

Boyce came to prominence in the early 1980s as a key figure in the burgeoning Black-British Arts Movement with figurative pastel drawings and photocollages that addressed issues of race and gender in Britain. Since the 1990s, however, Boyce has shifted significantly to embrace a wider social practice that invites improvisation, collaboration, movement, and sound with other people. Working across a range of media, Boyce’s art practice today is focused on questions of artistic authorship and cultural difference.

In 2016, Boyce was elected to the Royal Academy of Arts in London and in 2023, she was elected to the American Academy of Arts and Science in Boston. In 2014, she became a Professor at the University of the Arts London, where she holds the inaugural Chair in Black Art & Design. A three- year research project that she led into Black Artists and Modernism culminated with a BBC documentary Whoever Heard of a Black Artist? (2018) exploring the contribution of overlooked artists of African and Asian descent to the story of modern British art. In the 2024 King’s New Year Honour’s List, Boyce was awarded a Damehood.

Her works are held in many United Kingdom and international museum collections including TATE, London, United Kingdom; Victoria & Albert Museum, London, United Kingdom; Arts Council Collection of England, London, United Kingdom; British Council, London, United Kingdom; Government Art Collection, London, United Kingdom; Centre Pompidou, Paris, France; Hirschhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden, Washington, US; Centre National des Arts Plastiques (CNAP), Paris, France; and Barbados Museum and Historical Society, Barbados.