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Lover's Rock
Boyce, Sonia, born 1962 - Enlarge image
Lover's Rock
- Object:
Wallpaper
- Place of origin:
United Kingdom (made)
- Date:
1998 (made)
- Artist/Maker:
Boyce, Sonia, born 1962 (artist)
- Materials and Techniques:
Blind embossing on wallpaper
- Museum number:
E.465-1999
- Gallery location:
Prints & Drawings Study Room, room 514a, case S, shelf A
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.
