Biography

Mark Boyle (1934–2005) was born in Glasgow. During the 1960s he collaborated with his partner Joan Hills (1931–2024) in making assemblages of junk and found objects, before moving on to produce replicas of sections of the Earth. Their project Journey to the Surface of the Earth was launched in 1968–69. After being blindfolded, they threw darts at a world map, in order to pinpoint 1,000 areas of the Earth's surface to duplicate. On travelling to a selected site, the Boyles would throw a T-square in the air to select a random area to replicate. In the 1970s their two children (Sebastian, born 1962 and Georgia, born 1963) assisted in producing these works; together they operated under the name 'Boyle Family'.