Lynette Yiadom-Boakye

Widely considered to be one of the most important figurative artists working today, Lynette Yiadom-Boakye is celebrated for her enigmatic paintings of people who are plucked entirely from her imagination. Her characters feel both familiar and mysterious, raising questions of identity and representation. Each oil painting is created in spontaneous and instinctive bursts, revealing expressive, short brushstrokes and a distinctive palette of dark, dramatic tones contrasted with flashes of brightness.

A British painter and writer, of Ghanaian heritage, Yiadom-Boakye attended Central St. Martins College of Art and Design (1996 – 1997); however, unhappy with her time there she transferred to Falmouth College of Art (1997 – 2000). She then completed an MA degree at the Royal Academy Schools in 2003. Yiadom-Boakye has taught at the Ruskin School of Art, Oxford University, where she is a visiting tutor for their Master in Fine Arts programme. Her influence as a painter was recognized in the 2019 Powerlist and she was subsequently listed among the “top 10” of the most influential people of African or African Caribbean heritage in the UK in 2020.

She has also participated in a number of group shows and exhibitions, including the 55th and 58th Venice Biennales in 2013 and 2019 and Afro-Atlantic Histories (2021-2022). To this could be added numerous solo exhibitions at museums and galleries. Her notable solo shows include Any Number of Preoccupations (2010), Studio Museum in Harlem, New York; Verses After Dusk (2015), Serpentine Galleries, London; A Passion To A Principle (2016), Kunsthalle Basel, Switzerland; Under-Song For a Cipher (2017), New Museum, New York and Fly In League With The Night (2022-2023), Tate Britain, London.

Yiadom-Boakye has been widely hailed for her work, winning accolades including The Arts Foundation fellowship for painting (2006), the Pinchuk Foundation Future Generation Prize (2012), Next Generation Prize from the new Museum of Contemporary Art (2013) and the Carnegie Prize at 57th edition of Carnegie International (2018). She was also nominated for the prestigious Turner Prize in 2013.

At The Now Evening Auction (12 October 2023) at Sotheby’s in London, Yiadom–Boakye’s Six Birds in the Bush (2015, oil on linen, 200 x 130 cm), a larger than life-size portrait of a man, was estimated at £1,200,000 and sold for £2,952,000 (including buyer’s premium)!

For an artist, Yiadom-Boakye is unusual in describing herself as a writer as much as a painter — her short stories and prosy poems frequently appear in her catalogues and in talks about her work, the artist notes that her writing is to her as her painting is and explains that she “writes the things she doesn’t paint and paints all the things she doesn’t write”. Her paintings are given poetic titles.

Lynette Yiadom-Boakye’s paintings are predominantly figurative, with raw and muted colors. The characteristic dark palette of her work is known for creating a feeling of stillness that contributes to the timeless nature of her subjects. Her portraits of imaginary individuals feature people reading, lounging, and resting in traditional poses. She, like Lucian Freud (1922 – 2011) before her, brings to the depiction of her subjects, contemplative facial expressions and relaxed gestures, making their posture and mood relatable to many viewers as these figures rest in front of ambiguous backgrounds, floating inside monochromatic dark hues.

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