Get it on Google Play

A brush with... Sonia Boyce

A brush with... Sonia Boyce

Author: The Art Newspaper October 9, 2024 Duration: 1:02:40
A brush with...
ArtsVisual

Sonia Boyce talks to Ben Luke about her influences—from writers to musicians, film-makers and, of course, other artists—and the cultural experiences that have shaped her life and work. Boyce, a recent Golden Lion-winner at the Venice Biennale, was born in London in 1962 and first made an impact through her figurative drawings before shifting to what she calls a “multi-sensory” practice. Over the past three decades, her art has been a social experience, as she has worked with individual and collective collaborators to create performances, video pieces and installations. They reflect on a wealth of subjects, from personal and collective memory, to sound as a conveyor of subjective feeling and cultural experience, to the dynamics and meanings of space and environment, and to questions of value and power and who bestows and holds them. Sonia’s art is about people but also formed by them—people are her raw materials. She talks about her interest in power and authorship and the shift in her career, away from drawing to relational and social practice. She discusses the transformative experiences of seeing work by the Fenix feminist art collective, Frida Kahlo and visiting the 1981 exhibition in Wolverhampton, Black Art an’ Done. She reflects on William Morris’s wallpaper designs and the different ways in which they have manifested in her work. She discusses the connections between Dada and jazz music, and the influence of Billie Holiday and Ella Fitzgerald, and much more. Plus, she gives insight into her life in the studio, and answers our usual questions, including the ultimate, “What is art for?”


Sonia Boyce: An Awkward Relation and Lygia Clark: The I and the You, Whitechapel Gallery, London, until 12 January; Sonia Boyce: Feeling Her Way, Toronto Biennial, Art Gallery of Ontario, Toronto, until 6 April 2025; AMONG THE INVISIBLE JOINS: Works from the Enea Righi Collection, MUSEION—Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art in Bolzano-Bozen, Italy, until 2 March 2025.


Listen to Sonia Boyce talking about Feeling Her Way, in the episode of The Week in Art podcast from 22 April 2022, Venice Biennale Special.

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.


Ever wondered what really makes an artist tick? A brush with... from The Art Newspaper goes beyond the finished work to explore the daily rhythms and deep inspirations that fuel the creative process. Each episode is a quiet, focused conversation between host Ben Luke and a leading international artist, structured around a set of deceptively simple questions. You’ll hear them discuss the historical and contemporary figures they look to, the museums they find themselves drawn back to repeatedly, and the books, music, and films that shape their thinking. Crucially, Luke invites them to describe the mundane magic of the studio-what actually happens there day to day. This approach reveals the person behind the practice in a way that feels intimate and genuine. Sponsored by Bloomberg Connects, the podcast builds a rich portrait of artistic life, one thoughtful dialogue at a time. It’s for anyone curious about the web of influences and habits that culminate in a piece of art, offering a rare glimpse into the minds that shape our visual culture. Tune in for conversations that are less about interrogation and more about discovery, where the answers often surprise even the artists themselves.
Author: Language: English Episodes: 50

Official website RSS
instagramyoutubetiktoklinkedin
A brush with...
Podcast Episodes
A brush with... Sunil Gupta [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

Duration: 1:07:35
Sunil Gupta talks to Ben Luke about his influences—from writers to film-makers, and, of course, other artists—and the cultural experiences that have shaped his life and work. Across more than half a century Gupta has exp…
A brush with... Richard Tuttle [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

Duration: 1:05:22
Richard Tuttle talks to Ben Luke about his influences—from writers to musicians, and, of course, other artists—and the cultural experiences that have shaped his life and work. Tuttle, who was born in 1941 in Rahway, New…
A brush with... Dawoud Bey [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

Duration: 1:14:11
Dawoud Bey talks to Ben Luke about his influences—from writers to musicians, and, of course, other artists—and the cultural experiences that have shaped his life and work. Bey, who was born in 1953 in New York, makes pho…
A brush with... Katharina Grosse [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

Duration: 1:07:33
Katharina Grosse talks to Ben Luke about her influences—from writers to musicians, and, of course, other artists—and the cultural experiences that have shaped her life and work. Grosse, who was born in Freiberg im Breisg…
A brush with... Pio Abad [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

Duration: 1:08:12
Pio Abad talks to Ben Luke about his influences—from writers to musicians, and, of course, other artists—and the cultural experiences that have shaped his life and work. Abad explores objects and images that have persona…
A brush with... Anne Imhof [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

Duration: 1:02:37
Anne Imhof talks to Ben Luke about her influences—from writers to musicians, and, of course, other artists—and the cultural experiences that have shaped her life and work. Imhof, who was born in 1978 in Giessen in German…
A brush with... Caragh Thuring [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

Duration: 1:06:23
Caragh Thuring talks to Ben Luke about her influences—from writers to musicians, and, of course, other artists—and the cultural experiences that have shaped her life and work. Thuring, who was born in Brussels in 1972 an…
A brush with... Lisa Yuskavage [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

Duration: 1:06:35
In this first episode of the new series, Lisa Yuskavage talks to Ben Luke about her influences—from writers to musicians, film-makers and, of course, other artists—and the cultural experiences that have shaped her life a…
A brush with... Andrew Cranston [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

Duration: 1:13:18
Andrew Cranston talks to Ben Luke about his influences—from writers to musicians, film-makers and, of course, other artists—and the cultural experiences that have shaped his life and work. Cranston, who was born in 1969…
A brush with… Sanya Kantarovsky [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

Duration: 1:12:08
Sanya Kantarovsky talks to Ben Luke about his influences—from writers to musicians, and, of course, other artists—and the cultural experiences that have shaped his life and work. Kantarovsky was born in Moscow in 1982 an…

12345»