Boyle Family Large Composition Mixed Media 145 x 144cm (57 x 56½ in.) Boyle Family is a group of collaborative artists based in London. The origin of the group can be dated to 1957 when Mark Boyle and Joan Hills met in Harrogate. After a period of working separately on their own pieces, the couple naturally moved towards collaboration, turning wherever they were living at the time into a studio. From a young age, Mark and Joan's children would also be involved around the studio, helping with exhibitions, planning trips and finalising hangings. Eventually this would evolve into invative and collaborative partnerships, t just within the family but with other artists, performers and musicians, including Jimi Hendrix. Earlier works tended to be exhibited as being by Mark Boyle in an attempt to confirm to the stereotype that most artists are solo males. However as their work became more widely kwn, and the artistic stereotype began to broaden, they began to exhibit as Mark Boyle & Joan Hills. w adults, their children Sebastian and Georgia also opted to remain part of the team and since 1985 the four artists have exhibited jointly as Boyle Family. Their work is largely characterised by including everything and anything as a potential subject: earth, air, fire and water; animals, vegetables, insects, human beings and societies but they are best kwn for their earth studies of which the present three lots are examples. These three dimensional casts of the surface of the earth record and document random sites with great accuracy. These works combine real material from the site: stones, dust, twigs etc., with paint and resins, preserving the form of the ground to make unique one-off pieces that suggest and offer new interpretations of the environment, combining a powerful conceptual framework with a strong and haunting physical and visual presence