Sonia Boyce © Sonia Boyce. All Rights Reserved, DACS 2023. Courtesy the artist, Hauser & Wirth and Apalazzo Gallery. Photo: Parisa Taghizadeh
Sonia Boyce Awarded Damehood in 2024 New Year’s Honors List
Congratulations to Sonia Boyce who has been awarded a Damehood (DBE) in recognition of her outstanding contribution to art and art education. Boyce was awarded an OBE (Officer of the Order of the British Empire) for her services to art in 2019 and a MBE (Member of the British Empire), awarded in 2007 as part of the Queen’s Birthday Honors List.
Over the course of four decades, Sonia Boyce DBE RA has developed a powerfully original practice that transcends boundaries as an interdisciplinary artist and academic working across film, photography, print, sound and installation. Boyce creates immersive and experiential spaces that explore themes of play, disruption and revelation in which the audience become active participants.
In 2022, Boyce was awarded the Golden Lion for Best National Participation for ‘Feeling Her Way,’ commissioned for the British Pavilion at the 59th International Art Exhibition—La Biennale di Venezia. ‘Feeling Her Way’ will tour Canada, to PHI Foundation in Montreal in May 2024 and Toronto Biennial in September 2024.
Installation View, ‘Sonia Boyce. The Disorderly,’ Apalazzo Gallery, Brescia, Italy, 2022 © Sonia Boyce. All Rights Reserved, DACS 2023. Courtesy the artist and Apalazzo Gallery. Photo: Melania Dalle Grave / DSL Studio
Installation view, ‘Sonia Boyce. Feeling Her Way,’ British Pavilion, 59th International Art Exhibition, La Biennale di Venezia, Venice, Italy, 2022 © Sonia Boyce. All Rights Reserved, DACS 2023. Courtesy the artist and British Council. Photo: Cristiano Corte
In May 2024 Boyce will present a new project conceived for the Palazzo della Ragione, commissioned by GAMeC, Bergamo, Italy, that was filmed in the city in 2023. Boyce will also show a series of works in response to an exhibition of Brazilian artist Lygia Clark that Boyce is co-curating at Whitechapel Gallery, London, opening on 2 October, 2024. An inaugural exhibition at Hauser & Wirth in New York will follow in 2025.
The award recognizes Boyce’s impact as both an artist and educator. She has consistently worked within the art school context where she has made invaluable contributions to reshape the discourse of art through her work as an academic. Since 2014 she has been a Professor at University of the Arts London, where she holds the inaugural Chair in Black Art & Design. A three-year research project into Black Artists and Modernism culminated with the 2018 BBC Four documentary ‘Whoever Heard of a Black Artist? Britain’s Hidden Art History,’ exploring the contribution of overlooked artists of African and Asian descent to the story of Modern British art.
Sonia Boyce, Crop Over, 2007 / Shaggy Bear wallpaper, 2020. Installation view, ‘Life Between Islands,’ Tate Britain, London, UK, 2021 © Tate © Sonia Boyce. All Rights Reserved, DACS 2023. Courtesy the artist and Tate. Photo: Tate (Lucy Dawkins)
Sonia Boyce, The Audition in Colour, 1997/2020 © Sonia Boyce. All Rights Reserved, DACS 2023. Courtesy the artist, Hauser & Wirth and Apalazzo Gallery
Boyce’s work is held in public collections including Tate, London, UK; Victoria & Albert Museum, London, UK; Centre Pompidou Collection, Paris, France; Centre National des Arts Plastique (CNAP), Paris, France; Saastamonien Collection, Helsinki, Norway; Barbados Museum & Historical Society, Bridgetown, Barbados and Ulrich Museum of Art, Wichita, Kansas, USA.
Boyce holds three honorary doctorates from the Royal College of Art (2019), the Courtauld Institute of Art and Birmingham City University (2023), and an honorary fellowship from Norwich University of Arts (2022). In 2023, Boyce was awarded the International Honorary Member of the American Academy of Arts & Sciences.
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