Born in Islington, London, in 1962.
education
1973-79
Boyce attended Eastlea Comprehensive School in Canning Town, East London.
1979-80
Completed a Foundation Course in Art & Design at East Ham College of Art and Technology.
1980-83
Completed a BA in Fine Art at Stourbridge College in the West Midlands.
teaching and research positions
2015-2018
Principal Investigator, Black Artists and Modernism (BAM) a research project on work by Black British artists and modernism
2014
Professor of Black Art & Design, University of the Arts London, London, UK
2012-2017
Professor of Fine Art, Middlesex University, London, UK
2008-2011
Research Fellow, Wimbledon College of Art and Design, University of the Arts London. AHRC funded research project on the ephemeral nature of collaborative practice in art, concluding in the project The Future is Social.
2004-2005
Artist Fellow, NESTA
1996-2002
Post-Doctoral Fellow, University of East London
Co-Director, AAVAA (the African and Asian Visual Artists Archive)
solo exhibitions
1986
Conversations, The Black-Art Gallery, London
Sonia Boyce, Air Gallery, London
1988
Sonia Boyce: recent work, Whitechapel Art Gallery, London
1991
Something Else, Vanessa Devereux Gallery, London
1993
Do You Want To Touch?, 181 Gallery, London
1995
Sonia Boyce: PEEP, Royal Pavilion Art Gallery, Brighton
2001
Recent Sonia Boyce: La, La, La, Reed College, Portland, Oregon
2007
Devotional, National Portrait Gallery, London
For you, only you (ed. Paul Bonaventura, Ruskin School of Drawing & Fine Art, Oxford University, and tour, 2007-08
Crop Over, Harewood House, Leeds, and Barbados Museum & Historical Society
2009-10
Like Love - Part One, Spike Island, Bristol, and tour (2009-2010); Part 2 and Part 3 2009-10
2013
Scat - Sound and Collaboration, Iniva, Rivington Place, London
2016
Paper Tiger Whisky Soap Theatre (Dada Nice), Villa Arson, Nice
2018
Sonia Boyce, retrospective, Manchester Art Gallery
2020
In the Castle of My Skin, Eastside Projects, Birmingham, UK
2021
Trackside Wall – Crossrail/UP Projects public art commission, Royal Docks, London, UK
In the Castle of My Skin, Middlesbrough Institute of Modern Art (MIMA), Middlesbrough, UK
group exhibitions
1983
Five Black Women, Africa Centre, London
Black Woman Time Now, Battersea Arts Centre, London
1984
Strip Language, Gimpel Fils, London
Into The Open, Mappin Art Gallery, Sheffield
Heroes And Heroines, The Black-Art Gallery, London
1985
Room At The Top, Nicola Jacobs Gallery, London
Blackskins/Bluecoat, Bluecoat Gallery, Liverpool
Celebrations/Demonstrations, St Matthews Meeting Place, London
No More Little White Lies, Chapter Arts Centre, Cardiff
Reflections, Riverside Studios, London
The Thin Black Line, ICA, London
From Generation To Generation, Black Art Gallery, London
1986
Some Of Us Are Brave - All Of Us Are Strong, Black Art Gallery London
Unrecorded Truths, Elbow Room, London
From Two Worlds, Whitechapel Art Gallery, London
Caribbean Expressions In Britain, Leicestershire Museum and Art Gallery
Basel Art Fair, Switzerland
State Of The Art, ICA, London
A Cabinet of Drawings, Gimpel Fils, London
1987
The Image Employed - The Use Of Narrative In Black Art, Cornerhouse, Manchester
Critical Realism, Nottingham Castle Museum and Art Gallery
Basel Art Fair, Switzerland
Royal Overseas League, London
1988
The Essential Black Art, Chisenhale Gallery, London
The Impossible Self, Winnipeg Art Gallery, Winnipeg
The Thatcher Years, Angela Flowers Gallery, London
Fashioning Feminine Identities, University of Essex, Colchester
Along The Lines of Resistance, Cooper Art Gallery, Barnsley
1989
The Wedding, Mappin Art Gallery, Sheffield
The Other Story, Hayward Gallery, London
The Cuban Biennale, Wifredo Lam Cultural Centre, Havana
1990
The British Art Show, McLellan Galleries, Glasgow
Distinguishing Marks, University of London
The Invisible City, Photographers Gallery, London
Black Markets, Cornerhouse, Manchester
1991
Delfina Open Studios, London
Shocks To The System, South Bank Centre, London
Delfina Annual Summer Show, London
An English Summer, Palazzo della Crepadona, Belluna, Italy
Photo Video, Photographers Gallery, London
1992
Delfina Annual Summer Show, London
White Noise, IKON Gallery, Birmingham
Northern Adventures, Camden Arts Centre and St Pancras Station, London
Nosepaint Artist Club, London
Innocence And Experience, Manchester City Art Galleries
1993
New England Purpose Built: Long Distance Information, Real Art Ways, Hartford, USA
1994
Thinking Aloud, Small Mansions Art Centre, London
Wish You Were Here, BANK, London
Glass Vitrine, INIVA Launch, London
1995
Free Stories, LA Galerie, Frankfurt
Portable Fabric Shelters, London Printworks Trust, London
Fetishism, Brighton Museum, Brighton
Mirage, ICA, London
Photogenetic, Street Level, Glasgow
Cottage Industry, Beaconsfield, London
1996
Picturing Blackness in British Art, Tate, London
Kiss This, Focalpoint Gallery, Southend
2000
Video Positive: the Other Side of Zero, Bluecoat Gallery, Liverpool
New Woman Narratives, World-Wide Video Festival, Amsterdam
2001
Century City: Art and Culture in the Modern Metropolis, Tate Modern, London
2005
Sharjah International Biennial: 7, Sharjah
2008
Menschen und Orte, Kunstverein Konstanz, Konstanz
2009
Praxis: Art in Times of Uncertainty, Thessaloniki Biennal 2, Greece
2010
Afro Modern: Journeys through the Black Atlantic, Tate Liverpool and tour
Walls Are Talking: Wallpaper, Art and Culture, Whitworth Art Gallery, Manchester
Griot Girlz: Feminist Art and the Black Atlantic, Kunstlerhaus Büchenhausen, Innsbruck
Afuera! Art in Public Spaces, Centro Cultural España/Cordoba, Argentina
2011
8+8 Contemporary International Video Art, 53 Museum, Guangzhou
The Impossible Community, Moscow Museum of Modern Art
Coming Ashore, Berardo Collection Museum/P-28 Container Project, Lisbon
Black Sound White Cube, Kunstquartier Bethanien, Berlin
2012
Migrations: Journeys into British Art, Tate Britain
There is no archive in which nothing gets lost, Museum of Fine Arts, Houston
2013
Play! Re-capturing the Radical Imagination, GInternational Biennial of Contemporary Art 7
Keywords, Rivington Place, London
2014
Speaking in Tongues, CCA, Glasgow
2015
All the World's Futures, 56th Venice Biennale of Contemporary Art, Venice
No Colour Bar: Black British Art in Action 1960-1990, Guildhall Art Gallery, London
2016
Artist and Empire, Tate Britain, London, UK
Royal Academy Summer Exhibition, Royal Academy, London, UK
2017
The Lotus in Spite of the Swamp, Prospect 4, New Orleans, US
2018
Á Cris Ouverts, Rennes Biennale of Contemporary Art, Rennes, France
Social Work (with A Palazzo Gallery), Frieze Special Projects, London, UK
Talisman in the Age of Difference, Stephen Friedman Gallery, London, UK
2019
60 Years – A Walk Through British Art, Tate Britain, London, UK
Get Up, Stand Up Now: Generations of Black Creative Pioneers, Somerset House, London, UK
Fully Awake 4.6, Edinburgh College of Art, Edinburgh, Scotland
Rock My Soul, Victoria Miro Gallery, London, UK
Sounds Like Her – Gender, Sound Art and Sonic Cultures, New Art Exchange, Nottingham, UK. (This exhibition travelled through the UK to York Art Gallery, York, and Gallery Oldham, Oldham.)
2020
Of Bread, Wine, Cars, Security and Peace, Kunsthalle Wien, Vienna, Austria What Carries Us, The Rooms, Newfoundland and Labrador, Canada
Royal Academy Summer/Winter Exhibition, Royal Academy, London, UK
Diversity United, Tretyakov Gallery, Moscow, Russia
2021
Life Between Islands: Caribbean-British Art 1950s - Now, Tate Britain, London, UK
Threshold, National Art Gallery, Bridgetown, Barbados
Diversity United, Tempelhof, Berlin, Germany. This exhibition will travel to Palais de Tokyo, Paris, France
collections
Tate, London
Victoria & Albert Museum, London
The Government Art Collection, London
British Council Collection, London
Arts Council Collection, London
Pallant House Gallery, Chichester
Manchester Art Gallery, Manchester
Middlesbrough Institute of Modern Art (MIMA), Middlesbrough Royal Academy, London
Southampton City Art Gallery, Southampton Wolverhampton Art Gallery, West Midlands
Centre Pompidou, Paris
Ulrich Museum of Art, Wichita, KS
Yale Center for British Art, New Haven, CT