Lover's Rock, 1998, Works on Paper, Print and Photography

Medium
Blind embossed wallpaper
Dimensions
305cm x 56.2cm
Lover's Rock, 1998. Blind -embossed wallpaper, part five of a set of six. 305cm x 56.2cm

In Lover’s Rock, 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.

Lover’s Rock is a series of six wallpapers made while Boyce was artist in residence at the University of Manchester, which has a large collection of historic wallpapers at the Whitworth Art Gallery.

Collection of Victoria and Albert Museum, London

Wallpaper series

Devotional series

Related theme: Sound / Singing