Lover's Rock
Wallpaper
1998 (made)
1998 (made)
| Artist/Maker | |
| Place of origin |
At the age of 25 Sonia Boyce became the first black woman to have her work purchased by the Tate Gallery for its collection. Her work addresses issues of identity and the relationship between public and private space. References to domesticity are often made through the use of wallpaper.
In this piece Boyce uses blind embossing – stamping an impression into the paper, leaving raised areas – to create the image, which is the text of a popular song, ‘Hurt So Good’ (1975) by Susan Cadogan. Boyce intends the paper to evoke the experience of West Indian house parties, where couples dance together, leaving the wallpaper faintly marked where they press against it. These marks she sees as evidence of their physical and emotional engagement with the place and the music, and of the intensity of love itself, sensual but sometimes painful.
In this piece Boyce uses blind embossing – stamping an impression into the paper, leaving raised areas – to create the image, which is the text of a popular song, ‘Hurt So Good’ (1975) by Susan Cadogan. Boyce intends the paper to evoke the experience of West Indian house parties, where couples dance together, leaving the wallpaper faintly marked where they press against it. These marks she sees as evidence of their physical and emotional engagement with the place and the music, and of the intensity of love itself, sensual but sometimes painful.
Object details
| Categories | |
| Object type | |
| Title | Lover's Rock (assigned by artist) |
| Materials and techniques | Blind embossing on wallpaper |
| Brief description | Blind embossed wallpaper, one of six drops, 'Lover's Rock', Sonia Boyce, 1998 |
| Physical description | Blind-embossed wallpaper, part three of a set of six |
| Dimensions |
|
| Production type | Limited edition |
| Marks and inscriptions | 'you take my name and you spread lies in the street
ooh anything you want to do, I say is alright with me
then you turn right around and make sweet love to me
ooh you take it, show what's good to me
ooh baby I don't want you to ever quit
it ain't no good till it hurts a little bit' (Inscription; decoration; blind embossing) |
| Production | The work was made while Boyce was artist in Residence at the University of Manchester, which has a fine collection of historic wallpapers in the Whitworth Art Gallery. |
| Subjects depicted | |
| Literary reference | 'Hurt So Good' Lover's Rock song title by Susan Cadogan, 1975. |
| Summary | At the age of 25 Sonia Boyce became the first black woman to have her work purchased by the Tate Gallery for its collection. Her work addresses issues of identity and the relationship between public and private space. References to domesticity are often made through the use of wallpaper. In this piece Boyce uses blind embossing – stamping an impression into the paper, leaving raised areas – to create the image, which is the text of a popular song, ‘Hurt So Good’ (1975) by Susan Cadogan. Boyce intends the paper to evoke the experience of West Indian house parties, where couples dance together, leaving the wallpaper faintly marked where they press against it. These marks she sees as evidence of their physical and emotional engagement with the place and the music, and of the intensity of love itself, sensual but sometimes painful. |
| Associated objects | |
| Collection | |
| Accession number | E.465-1999 |
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| Record created | January 18, 2000 |
| Record URL |
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