Dame Sonia Dawn Boyce DBE RA HonFBA (born 1962[1]) is a British Afro-Caribbean artist and educator who lives and works in London.
[2] Boyce's research interests explore art as a social practice and the critical and contextual debates that arise from this area of study.
[4] 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.
[5] In April 2022, Boyce won the Venice Biennale's top Golden Lion prize with her work Feeling Her Way.
[11] Roy Exley (2001) has written: "The effect of her work has been to re-orientate and re-negotiate the position of Black or Afro-Caribbean art within the cultural mainstream.
Through this work, the artist examined her position as a Black woman in Britain and the historical events in which that experience was rooted.
[14] In 1989, Boyce was one of four female artists selected for an exhibition called The Other Story, which was the first display of British African, Caribbean, and Asian Modernism.
[15] In her later works, Boyce has used diverse media including digital photography to produce composite images depicting contemporary Black life.
[23][15] In February 2020 Boyce was selected as the first Black woman to represent the United Kingdom at the Venice Biennale; chosen by the British Council, she would produce a major solo exhibition.
The British Council's director of visual arts, Emma Dexter, stated that Boyce's inclusive and powerful work would be a perfect selection for this significant time in UK history.
Using this societal backdrop, Boyce takes conventional narratives surrounding the black body and turns it upside down.