Finding space and visibility for back people drives Sonia Latchford’s art.

Her portraits are specifically of black people. She plays on stereotypes of black people in western culture to bring her subjects into three dimensions, showing their lived experience. The black body is not only recognised, but celebrated.

The portraits in this exhibition were painted with just a few tools, and with the same five-pigment palette.

Each image begins in the studio with Latchford photographing her sitter. They aren’t told how to pose or sit, just given a chair and asked to make their own choices. Latchford paints people from her own life, her friends, relatives and colleagues, but also strangers from the street. Her photographs provide the starting point for her sketches – then she sets them aside to work from memory.