KS4 (ENG), KS4 (NI), CfE L4 (SCO), KS4 (WAL), KS5 (ENG), KS5 (NI), CfE Sen. (SCO), KS5 (WAL)
BLK Art Group, Figurative art, Drawing, Women artists, Black artists, History painting
Who is Sonia Boyce? Who and what inspires her? What are some of the key themes she explores in her work?
Use this resource to find out about Sonia Boyce:
This Art and Design resource is written for KS 4 and 5 / CfE Levels 4 and senior phase students and students in Further and Higher Education. Teachers could also use and adapt sections of the resource for KS 3 / CfE level 3 students.
Art and design
- Evaluate and analyse creative works
- Actively engage in the creative process of art
- Know about great artists and understand the historical and cultural development of their art forms
- Produce creative work, explore ideas
Art and design
KS 4
- Develop ideas through investigations, demonstrating critical understanding of sources
- Refine work by exploring ideas, selecting and experimenting with appropriate media, materials, techniques and processes
- Record ideas, observations and insights relevant to intentions as work progresses
- Present a personal and meaningful response that realises intentions and demonstrates understanding of visual language
Art and design
Level 4
- I have continued to experiment with a range of media and technologies, handling them with control and assurance to create images and objects. I can apply my understanding of the properties of media and of techniques to specific tasks (EXA 4-02a)
- I can use the visual elements and concepts with sensitivity to express qualities and relationships and convey information, thoughts and feelings. I can use my skills and creativity to generate original ideas in my expressive and design work (EXA 4-03a)
- Having chosen personal themes and developed my own ideas from a range of stimuli, I can express and communicate my ideas, thoughts and feelings through 2D and 3D work (EXA 4-05a)
- I can analyse art and design techniques, processes and concepts, make informed judgements and express considered opinions on my own and others' work (EXA 4-07a)
Art and design
- Students use their knowledge about the work of other artists to enrich and inform their work through analysis and evaluation
- Students use a variety of processes
- Students evaluate their work through discussion
- Students explore, experiment with and apply the visual, tactile and sensory language of art
Expressive Arts
Exploring the expressive arts is essential to developing artistic skills and knowledge and it enables learners to become curious and creative individuals.
Progression step 5:
I can explore and experiment with my own creative ideas and those of others, demonstrating technical control, innovation, independent thinking and originality, showing confidence to take risks and developing resilience in order to overcome creative challenges.
I can investigate and analyse how creative work is used to represent and celebrate personal, social and cultural identities.
I can independently research the purpose and meaning of a wide range of creative work and consider how they can impact on different audiences.
Responding and reflecting, both as artist and audience, is a fundamental part of learning in the expressive arts.
Progression step 5:
I can critically and thoughtfully respond to and analyse the opinion and creative influences of others in order to independently shape and develop my own creative work.
I can purposefully apply knowledge and understanding of context when evaluating my own creative work and creative work by other people and from other places and times.
I can critically evaluate the way artists use discipline-specific skills and techniques to create and communicate ideas.
Creating combines skills and knowledge, drawing on the senses, inspiration and imagination.
Progression step 5:
I can synthesise and apply experience, knowledge and understanding with sophistication and intent when communicating my ideas.
I can use professionally established, discipline-specific techniques confidently and convincingly in my creative work and work towards industry standard.
I can design creative outcomes to professional and industry-standard with sophistication, clear purpose and intent.
I can use effective strategies to take risks with my own creative work and can display resilience to overcome creative challenges.
I can evaluate and judge the appropriateness of my creative work in relation to ethical and legal considerations and its effect on participants and audiences.
This resource can be used for research and discussion as a class, or for individual study and reflection.
It offers a series of activities that can be used together or as individual components to integrate into your own scheme of work.
Key people: art inspirations and influences
Key themes: identity, Black histories, social practice and community engagement
'Being a Black woman is a perpetual struggle to be heard and appreciated as a human being …' – Sonia Boyce
Sonia Boyce is a Black British artist. She was born in Islington, London in 1962. Her mother was from Barbados, and her father was from Guyana, and they met in London after arriving in the 1950s as part of the Windrush generation.
Image credit: Emile Holba
Sonia Boyce
In her work, Boyce explores the experience of Black people, especially women, living in Britain and tells their often unheard or forgotten stories and histories.
In the 1980s while at art school Boyce began making large-scale figurative pastel and mixed media works on paper. These drew on her personal experiences of family and home to explore wider themes relating to cultural and gender identity.
Though her focus later shifted from her personal memories; her experiences as a Black woman living in a white society, and the impact of politics and sexual politics remained central to her work.
Boyce uses a wide range of media including drawing, print, photography, video and sound. She often collaborates with other artists as well as musicians, other creatives and communities.
Career highlights and achievements
Sonia Boyce's achievements can be mapped in terms of a series of 'firsts' in relation to Black British art. (This is something that Boyce feels ambiguous about – questioning why it took so long for Black artists to be recognised and pointing out that there were many important Black artists before her.)
We are pleased to announce that Sonia Boyce OBE RA has been chosen to represent the UK at Biennale Arte 2021, presenting a solo exhibition of new work.
— British Council Visual Arts (@Brit_VisualArts) February 12, 2020
Find out more: https://t.co/EEwPqHIwRT
Photo Credit: Landscape of Sonia Boyce by Paul Cochrane, courtesy of UAL, 2013 pic.twitter.com/qinr0Q37yx
Art school and the British Black arts movement
'Art was a door that hadn't been opened to me before. I grew up in a very working-class community and had no idea about art school.' – Sonia Boyce
Boyce studied Fine Art at Stourbridge College in the West Midlands, where she felt out of place and marginalised as a Black woman. In a 2018 interview, she said: 'the system hadn't anticipated me, or anyone like me. Even though there were a lot of female students, they were thought about as though they were being trained to become the wives of artists, not artists themselves. As a Black person, there wasn't a narrative at all.'
While at college she went to a conference of Black artists organised by students at Wolverhampton Polytechnic including Eddie Chambers, Marlene Smith, Donald Rodney, Claudette Johnson and Keith Piper. This changed everything for Boyce as she met others who shared her interest in confronting the challenges faced by Black people living in Britain in the 1980s.
'When I entered that auditorium, I suddenly discovered there were hundreds of artists around the country, and that there was so much I was completely unaware of. How did I not know about all these people?' – Sonia Boyce
The British Black arts movement formed out of the conference. It aimed to establish a visibly 'Black art' that addressed social and political issues relevant to ethnic groups in Britain, building on the work of the BLK Art Group. Through exhibitions, the movement shone a spotlight on the work made by Black artists and helped to change the perception of British culture to include Black and Asian artists.
One of the artists that Sonia Boyce met at the conference was Lubaina Himid. Like Boyce, she creates figurative artworks that help to tell the stories and experiences of Black communities in Britain. Himid encouraged and supported Boyce and invited her to exhibit her drawings in exhibitions including The Thin Black Line at the ICA in London in 1985.
Claudette Johnson
Claudette Johnson was a member of the Blk Art Group and another friend that Sonia Boyce made through the conference in Wolverhampton. Johnson's exploration of racism in art history, especially in relation to women, was an inspiration to Boyce. Johnson was exploring these themes at a time when intersectionality (looking at combined issues such as being a woman and Black) wasn't often considered.
'People would ask me where I was putting my energy in terms of fighting for change: are you black, or are you a woman?' – Claudette Johnson
Frida Kahlo
In 1982, Boyce saw a retrospective exhibition of the work of Mexican artist Frida Kahlo at the Whitechapel Gallery in London. She was inspired by Kahlo's use of self-portraiture and symbolism to address her identity and the issues that women faced in society, as well as the cultural and political effects of colonialism on her country. ('Identity' means the things that make people who they are, such as their qualities, personality, beliefs, background and culture.)
View this post on Instagram
In her early work, Boyce often used personal experiences to explore her own identity as well as the broader experiences of Black women and the challenges they face. Her drawing She Ain't Holdin' Them Up, She's Holdin' On (Some English Rose) (1986) was inspired by Kahlo's painting My Grandparents, My Parents and I (1936) in which Kahlo explores her identity within the structure of her family. Boyce's drawing reflects her relationship with her own family and her experience of trying to balance her Afro-Caribbean heritage with her identity as a Black British woman. She uses symbolism as an important part of this exploration.
Margaret Harrison
While Sonia Boyce was studying on a foundation course at East Ham College of Art, the artist Margaret Harrison visited the college. Her work dealt with subjects that Boyce had not seen represented before. She wrote about Harrison: 'She taught us that even rape can be a subject for our canvases – sexual abuse, abuse of trust, abuse of power, an everyday occurrence, a highly political act'.
Mary Cassatt
As a student Boyce also explored the work of Impressionist artist Mary Cassatt. She was inspired by her inventive use of pastels to create dynamic and spontaneous drawings and her bold contribution to the development of a modern art language.
Identity is a theme that Boyce has explored throughout her career. In her early work, she focused on her self-identity.
Many of Boyce's early figurative drawings were self-portraits that included her family, friends and childhood home. Her drawing She Ain't Holding Them Up, She's Holding on (Some English Rose) (1986) is a self-portrait in which Boyce shows herself balancing a family in her hands. The family, which includes her father, mother, sister and herself as a child, look as if they are posing for a photograph, dressed in their best clothes. In the drawing, Boyce is both supporting them and holding onto them – holding onto aspects of her identity that come from them and from her cultural background.
Look at the drawing carefully. Can you spot any objects or imagery that Boyce might have included to symbolise her identity?
© Sonia Boyce. All rights reserved, DACS 2025. Image credit: Middlesbrough Institute of Modern Art, mima
She Ain’t Holding Them Up, She’s Holding On (Some English Rose) 1986
Sonia Boyce (b.1962)
Middlesbrough Institute of Modern Art, mimaBlack histories
Alongside making art, Sonia Boyce is a researcher and educator. Her research focuses on finding and highlighting marginalized Black histories. In 2015 she launched a research project, Black Artists and Modernism (BAM) with the aim of uncovering work by Black and Asian artists hidden away in the storage rooms of museums. Boyce has taught in art schools across the UK and is passionate about ensuring that students know about the Black artists in our national collections.
© the copyright holder. Image credit: Wolverhampton Arts and Heritage
Untitled (sixth in the 'Korabra' series) 1986
Gavin Jantjes (b.1948)
Wolverhampton Arts and Heritage'I've been teaching in art schools for 39 years, and in many of the places that I have taught, it's been really clear that students are not getting a full picture of artists who have made quite significant contributions to modern and contemporary art, and don't really know how to access that information, and so I suppose that was really the starting point.' – Sonia Boyce
For her 2022 Venice Biennale exhibition Feeling her Way, she created a multi-media installation that celebrated Black British female musicians. She made wallpaper patterned with collaged photographs, presented vinyl and other memorabilia that she had collected and found in charity shops. She also presented video and audio works that she had made collaboratively.
Watch Sonia Boyce talking about her Venice Biennale exhibition in this video. Reflect on or discuss:
Engaging with others to make art is an important aspect of Sonia Boyce's practice as an artist. She often works with communities so that their ideas become the art, ensuring that their voices are heard.
Newham Trackside Wall is an example of one of the artworks that Boyce created with community engagement. The 1.9 km mural runs alongside the Crossrail track in Newham in east London. The mural is made up of text and photo panels. The photo panels feature local buildings and plants that can be found in the area. The text panels are printed with memories, soundbites and recollections collected from 170 local people, as well as historical facts about Newham.
© Sonia Boyce. All rights reserved, DACS 2022.. Image credit: Tracy Jenkins / Art UK
Detail of 'Newham Trackside Wall' by Up Projects and Sonia Boyce (b.1962)
Explore details of the artwork in the carousel below and on the artwork page. You can see more details of the artwork on the Newham Trackside Wall website.
What impression of the area comes across from the artwork? You could reflect on or discuss:
You could also reflect on or discuss whether you feel the artwork is successful:
Detail of 'Newham Trackside Wall' by Up Projects and Sonia Boyce (b.1962). © Sonia Boyce. All rights reserved, DACS 2022.. Image credit: Tracy Jenkins / Art UK
Detail of 'Newham Trackside Wall' by Up Projects and Sonia Boyce (b.1962). © Sonia Boyce. All rights reserved, DACS 2022.. Image credit: Tracy Jenkins / Art UK
Detail of 'Newham Trackside Wall' by Up Projects and Sonia Boyce (b.1962). © Sonia Boyce. All rights reserved, DACS 2022.. Image credit: Tracy Jenkins / Art UK
Detail of 'Newham Trackside Wall' by Up Projects and Sonia Boyce (b.1962). © Sonia Boyce. All rights reserved, DACS 2022.. Image credit: Tracy Jenkins / Art UK
Detail of 'Newham Trackside Wall' by Up Projects and Sonia Boyce (b.1962). © Sonia Boyce. All rights reserved, DACS 2022.. Image credit: Tracy Jenkins / Art UK
Detail of 'Newham Trackside Wall' by Up Projects and Sonia Boyce (b.1962). © Sonia Boyce. All rights reserved, DACS 2022.. Image credit: Tracy Jenkins / Art UK
Missionary Position II is a large-scale pastel and watercolour drawing of two young Black women in a domestic interior. One is praying and the other is leaning back and looking at her with her arm raised. The features of the women suggest that they are both self-portraits of Sonia Boyce.
Boyce made the drawing as a young artist, two years after graduating from art school.
Look closely at the drawing. Use the questions below to reflect on or discuss it, then find out more in the 'About the artwork' section.
First impressions …
Background, objects and clothing …
Media and techniques …
Message and meaning …
What do the women's poses and expressions suggest?
- The praying woman is kneeling, and her eyes are closed. She seems focused and oblivious to her companion.
- The other woman is sitting and leaning back (as if she is recoiling), with her right arm stretching out towards the face of the kneeling woman.
What is the background or setting and what objects can you see?
- The women are in a domestic setting. The scene was inspired by Boyce's mother's living room and is typical in style to the living rooms that many Caribbean people of her parent's generation had.
- The patterned wallpaper and sofa are furnishings that Boyce remembers from her childhood home. The ceramic lamp base in the form of the head of a Black girl and the two ornamental birds on the wall, which are cropped by the top of the painting are perhaps mementoes brought from the Caribbean.
- There is also a crucifix on the wall between the two women. This wasn't part of her childhood home, Boyce added this to help signpost the theme of the work.
How are the women dressed? What might this tell us about them?
- The kneeling woman is dressed in an ordinary jumper, skirt and hat. The clothes are European in style.
- The reclining woman wears a brightly-coloured dress and a head wrap, suggesting the style of traditional African dress. This style of headwrap began to be worn by Black people in Britain and the Caribbean in the 1970s and reflected a new awareness of African culture.
- Through the clothes, Boyce perhaps suggests two different aspects of her identity – her Afro-Caribbean heritage and her life in the UK.
What techniques did Sonia Boyce use to create the artwork?
- Before starting the artwork, Boyce made a series of separate small line drawings, around 10 x 10 cm, for each figure as well as for the different background elements in the composition.
- She then projected the drawings using an epidiascope (a type of projector) onto a large sheet of paper fixed to the wall and mapped out the outlines of the different elements of the composition. We can see the blue outlines of these drawings in the finished work.
- She initially added washes of thinned watercolour to the paper. These watercolour washes in red, purple and orange provided a base colour for drawing dark skin and meant she could achieve the tones she wanted.
- She then meticulously added the details using pastels – taking two weeks to finish the drawing.
How has Sonia Boyce used formal elements such as composition, colour, pattern and mark-making?
- The composition is dominated by the two figures. The close-up view makes us focus on the faces and gestures of the figures.
- The centrally placed sofa and cross, with the repeated birds on either side, provide a sense of symmetry and order to the composition. The geometric patterned wallpaper and still, upright, kneeling figure add to this order.
- The recoiling figure with her arm flung out cuts across this orderliness creating a diagonal line and dynamic movement that disrupts the composition.
- The bright colours, with very little shading, make the image seem flat. The patterns on the wallpaper and carpet add to this flatness.
- Boyce used a combination of mark-making. The yellow jumper of the praying figure is smooth. Boyce may have laid the pastel on its side or smudged it to create this smooth, flat effect. She has also smudged the pastel in areas of the drawing to suggest shadow.
- The rest of the clothing, the skin of the figures, the carpet and the cushions have been filled in using a dense mesh of marks and lines. Dashes of cream suggest the pattern on the red dress.
What is pastel and why did Sonia Boyce use it?
- Pastel is a drawing medium.
- Pastels are usually in stick form and look a bit like crayons. They consist of powdered pigment combined with a binder (which holds the powdered pigment together).
- As well as enjoying working with pastel as a medium, Boyce had a political reason for using it. Through reading feminist histories of art, she discovered that female artists were generally excluded from art school and learning oil paint techniques. They also usually didn't have studio spaces to create large artworks. So they turned instead to other media such as pastels and worked on a small scale at home.
- By adopting the medium of pastel, Boyce consciously referenced the position of women artists in the history of Western art. By using pastel to make large-scale drawings she subverted the general perception of it as a small-scale medium.
'I actually like doing large-scale work. When I say large scale, I mean large scale for pastels, which is why people often think that they are paintings. It's not particularly large for painting but it is for pastel. I mean, you're talking about a millimetre at a time: it's a large area and it's very tedious, a very tedious method. But I liked the prospect that people would be confused.'
What does the text tell us?
- The text to the right (above the praying figure) reads 'Missionary Positions'.
- The text to the left of the cross (above the reclining figure) reads 'II position changing'. This perhaps suggests that the woman who is reclining is rethinking her ideas about religion.
- At the bottom of the drawing is more text, written in the informal language used by people of Caribbean heritage. This text suggests that religion and politics are connected.
'Laard but look my trials nuh – | they say keep politics out of religion | and religion out of politics | but when were they ever separate? Laard give me strength.'
What do you think Sonia Boyce is saying in the drawing?
- Various things about the painting reference religion: the praying woman, the crucifix and the title of the painting.
- Sonia Boyce's family are Christians but Boyce didn't share or understand her parents' beliefs. For Boyce, religion is part of a power structure that is used to control people. She sees Christianity as something used historically by Europeans to control African people.
- The two women represent the conflict between her religious upbringing and her own feelings about religion. The praying figure, in her prim European clothes, seems oblivious to the concerns of the other figure, who is questioning religion and the structures surrounding it. The dynamic pose and gesture of this figure disrupt the order of the scene
- If you look closely, you will see that the ear of the figure in red looks unfinished or rubbed out. Boyce has said that this symbolises the lack of communication between the two characters. It also reflects the sense of confusion she felt because of her Christian upbringing and the lack of discussion about religious beliefs in general.
- The term 'missionary position' that Boyce uses as the title of the drawing describes the 'proper' or 'morally correct' position that Christian missionaries during the colonial era suggested should be used during sexual intercourse – with women underneath and men on top. Boyce uses the term to symbolise the power structures in society. People in countries that were colonised by Europeans were expected to be submissive.
From Tarzan to Rambo ... is a large, photography-based, mixed-media artwork over 3.5 metres wide. In it, Boyce explores and questions the representation of Black people in the media and how this impacts how they see themselves and their identity.
Look closely at the artwork. Use the questions below to reflect on or discuss it. Then find out more in the 'About the artwork' section.
First impressions …
Look closer at the images, objects and patterns included in the artwork ...
Media and techniques …
Message and meaning …
What different types of image can you see?
The artwork includes photographs, cartoon-style line drawings and collaged images, objects and fabrics.
Self-portraits
- There are 12 photographic self-portraits of Boyce that look like they have been made in a photo booth. This is the type of photograph that is used for ID cards or passports and perhaps suggests that Boyce is presenting herself for scrutiny – or perhaps she is making the point that as a Black person, she is used to feeling scrutinised.
- In the photographs, she adopts a range of expressions. Boyce has spoken about how the wide-eyed face represents the way black people were often represented as comical characters in the history of cinema and in the media.
- In some of the photographs, she is in a type of trance – suggesting the stereo-typical association of Black people with voodoo.
Cartoon imagery
- The cartoon-style drawings of people in the jungle were traced from jungle adventure comics from the 1940s. In these comics, the Black figures are secondary to the white 'hero' figures such as Tarzan. They often don't speak – or talk nonsense. The text in the speech bubble reflects this.
- If you look very closely you will see a pink blurry image to the left of the jungle figures. This is the figure of Tarzan, which Boyce filled in with pink paint and then painted over.
- Down one side of the work, there is a strip of faces taken from a 1930s cartoon that shows a Black child as a 'golliwog' (racist caricatures of Black people popular in the UK in the first half of the twentieth century, often appearing as children's toys). As Boyce explains in an interview: 'That imagery was common currency – not only for me growing up as child, but before then. These images have come from the 1930s – one doesn't see them as readily now but I suppose they shout out a stereotype – the kind of parodying of the Black body, the Black figure.' Boyce included them to connect this type of offensive children's book illustration, often seen as 'harmless', with the image of Black people that appeared in films.
Textiles and leaves
- A collaged panel down the middle shows a piece of patterned waxed cotton fabric. This type of fabric was produced in the West for the African market.
- Boyce added the leaf stems to echo the jungle theme. Placed over her self-portraits, it looks as if she is peeping out from behind branches – like the 'natives' in the cartoon and referred to in the title.
- Boyce gathered the photographs, fabrics and other patterns and leaves together. She then laid the drawings of Tarzan and the jungle figures on top.
- She photographed the whole composition and worked back over the top of the image with paint, crayon and felt-tip pen.
What is the message of the artwork?
- In From Tarzan to Rambo ... Sonia Boyce looks at how Black people have been represented in Hollywood films and wider media and culture – for example, marginalised or presented as comical figures.
- Tarzan and Rambo are white men and mythic figures who become 'kings of the jungle'. They represent colonial impulses to control, dominate and master.
- The artwork was made in 1987 – when the Rambo films were being made – and it looks back to Tarzan films made in the 1930s and 1940s, which Boyce remembers seeing as a child. The cartoons and films fed into her understanding of her own identity when she was growing up.
- Boyce reflects on the African diaspora and questions the impact this has had on the identity of Black people. (Diaspora means the dispersion or spread of people from their original homeland.)
- She presents herself as the 'English-born native' that she refers to in the full title of the work, and attempts to understand her self-image and her identity within the stereotypes offered by the predominantly white media.
- Although she is a 'native' of Britain, through the representation of Black people in films and the media, she is made to feel like an outsider in her own country.
We Move in Her Way is composed of photographs of a dancer. The print is one of a series of photographic and video works that Boyce created from recordings she made of a vocal and dance performance that she organised at the ICA in London. She invited Black singers and dancers to improvise their performance, encouraging them to allow the work to evolve organically through movement and interaction.
Look closely at the artwork. Use the questions below to reflect on or discuss it, then find out more in the 'About the artwork' section.
First impressions ...
Media and techniques ...
Message and meaning ...
- An image of female dancers is repeated across the composition to create a rhythmic pattern.
- The image at first looks abstracted, but when you look closer, you can see the dancers and the shapes their bodies make.
What media, techniques and processes did Boyce use?
- Boyce used a photograph that recorded the staged performance at the ICA.
- She manipulated the photograph by flipping it vertically and horizontally and duplicating it.
- By doing this she created a repeat symmetrical pattern, reshaping and abstracting the original image.
- The shapes of the dancers' legs and arms are repeated in the shadows on the floor. A pink, geometric shape that runs through the print also seems to echo their body shapes. (It isn’t clear whether this was on the floor of the space where they performed or was added afterwards by Boyce.)
- Boyce describes this process of manipulation as 're-couping the remains' – forming something new from the record (or remains) of the performance.
- The work reflects Boyce's interests in Dada – an art movement from the early twentieth century that existed outside the conventional mainstream art world and explored improvisation.
What do you think the message of the artwork is?
- The performance – and the images Boyce made from the photographs and video recordings – celebrate the Black body. The idea of the Black body as 'other' in a dominant white culture is a theme that runs through Boyce's work.
- The rhythmic pattern that she created by reshaping the image echoes the nature of performance – as something with music and repeated movements.
- The pattern also creates a sense of movement that reflects the subject
- The artwork celebrates collaboration. Boyce saw the performance as a collaboration between herself and the musicians and dancers. She encouraged them to improvise their movements and sounds.
Create a mixed-media artwork that reflects your identity
Sonia Boyce used photography, collage, drawing and painting to create her artwork From Tarzan to Rambo … The complex imagery and layers of ideas reflect her thoughts about her identity. For her exhibition Feeling Her Way, she presented a multi-media assemblage of objects, photographs, patterns and audiovisual material.
Create a mixed-media or multi-media artwork to reflect your identity.
Gather ideas
Start by thinking about who you are and what aspects of yourself you want to explore and convey in your work. You could look again at Boyce's artwork She Ain't Holdin' Them Up, She's Holdin' On (Some English Rose) and the different symbols she included to represent her family background, her memories, and her identity and image.
It might help in planning your artwork to fold a piece of paper in half vertically and, on one side, make a list of the things that make you who you are. These could relate to:
On the other side of the paper, make a note of images, texts or music that you could use to represent these things.
Be inspired!
Explore mixed-media artworks that combine or overlay different types of imagery and/or text.
© the artist. Image credit: Arts Council Collection, Southbank Centre, London
© Ingrid Pollard. All rights reserved, DACS 2025. Image credit: Alan Dimmick / Glasgow Women's Library
© The Estate of Ian Breakwell. All rights reserved. DACS 2025. Image credit: British Council Collection
© the artist. Image credit: Barbara Walker
© the artist. Image credit: The Stroud District (Cowle) Museum Trust Collection
© the copyright holder. Image credit: Fry Art Gallery
© the artist. Image credit: Royal Academy of Arts
© the artist. Image credit: The Nightingale Project
© the artist. Image credit: Central Saint Martins Museum & Study Collection
© the artist. Image credit: Arts Council Collection, Southbank Centre, London
Plan and create your artwork
How will you arrange these different elements? Sonia Boyce repeated the heads that appear in From Tarzan to Rambo … to suggest the frames of a film. Think about how you can use the composition to reflect the message and meaning of your work.
Make an abstracted photographic collage
To create We Move in Her Way, Sonia Boyce manipulated a photographic print of a dancer.
Have a go at reshaping a photographic image to create an artwork.
Gather ideas and source materials
You could either use a photograph that you have taken yourself or a 'found' photograph. Here are some ideas ...
Create your artwork
Use photo editing tools on your computer to repeat and flip the image to create a repeat pattern.
You could also try layering the image and manipulating the colour, or adding geometric shapes or patterns over the top.
Collaborate with others to design a public artwork that reflects and celebrates your local community
To create her public artwork Newham Trackside Wall, Boyce collaborated with 170 local people who shared their memories, stories and images of the area. She also collaborated with the charity that facilitated the project and the manufacturers who made the panels for the wall.
© Sonia Boyce. All rights reserved, DACS 2022.. Image credit: Tracy Jenkins / Art UK
Detail of 'Newham Trackside Wall' by Up Projects and Sonia Boyce (b.1962)
Plan a project that reflects and celebrates your community. You could collaborate with friends or other students.
Gather ideas
Think about what makes your local community special. (Your community could be your school, college, or where you live.)
Ask questions
Like Boyce, you could ask other people in your community for their thoughts and stories. It might help to create a short questionnaire with questions such as:
Research histories
Visit your local library or archives to find out about the history of your place.
If the community you wish to celebrate is your school or college, ask your librarian if there are any documents relating to its history stored there. You may uncover some interesting stories!
Plan and design
Once you have gathered your material, think about the form your artwork will take. (Even if you don't have the resources to create a large-scale artwork, you could design one using sketches and models.)
Here are some ideas ...
Design a mural. Use this street art resource for inspiration and ideas for planning and creating a mural.
Design a sculpture or installation. Look at public sculptures that celebrate community for inspiration. Use the links below to explore these Art UK public sculpture learning resources for ideas:
Create a sound piece. Use the voices of people in your community and music or other sounds that reflect the mood, atmosphere or spirit of your place. What equipment would you need to play the sound piece? Where could you place it in your school or community so people passing by can listen to it?
Sonia Boyce. Image credit: Emile Holba
Speech Acts. Art on display includes the set of photographs 'Christmas Day' by Rasheed Araeen. Image credit: Michael Pollard
Sonia Boyce. Image credit: Maya Bailey
Installation view of 'Life Between Islands Caribbean-British Art 1950s – Now'. Image credit: Tate
English Pastoral. 2017, digital collage by Rosa Johan Uddoh (b.1993). © Rosa Johan Uddoh. Image credit: Rosa Johan Uddoh
© Hew Locke. All rights reserved, DACS 2025. Image credit: Anna Arca. Courtesy of Birmingham Museums Trust
© Estate of Maud Sulter. All rights reserved, DACS 2025. Image credit: National Portrait Gallery, London
