Sonia Boyce

What's the story behind your drawing 'Mr. Close Friend of the Family Pays a Visit Whilst Everyone Else Is Out'?

I was remembering this incident that had happened at home where a man who was a close friend of the family had come round to the house. Nobody else was in the house. I'd let him in and he tried to rape me. I would have been twelve, thirteen, something like that. … I never spoke about it. … I just kind of felt I just need to say this at this moment. … Yes, it did help.

How do those firsts – first black woman collected by the Tate, first black woman to represent Britain at the Venice Biennale – sit with you?

I love that people recognize me … But when I'm told, 'Oh, you're the first,' I kind of think, 'Oh, they weren't expecting me or anybody like me.' … nobody knows what I do. If you just say that, it doesn't matter what I do. Literally you're just looking at me and not the work that I make.

Why was the painting 'Hylas and the Nymphs' singled out to come down?

Staff who [were] public facing kept saying … there's a kind of culture that is developing around this painting where young teenage girls come and take selfies and then there's a kind of cruising culture … this man came around … he was filming all of the paintings and sculptures where there were naked or semi-naked women … and he stops at this painting … and another member of the general public … says, 'You do know that they're meant to be pre-pubescent girls' and he goes, 'Oh, that's even better.' At which point everybody … said, that painting has got to come down.