Lynette Yiadom-Boakye : fly in league with the night

Summary: Fact and fiction fuse in Lynette Yiadom-Boakye's paintings: they appear to be portraits, yet the people she depicts are not real but invented. Created from a composite of found images and her own imagination, her characters seem to exist outside of a specific time and place: they feel at once familiar and mysterious. This ambiguity resonates again in the titles she gives to her artworks. The artist is also a writer of poetry and prose, and for her, the two forms of creativity complement each other: 'The things I can't paint, I write. The things I can't write, I paint.' Accompanying the first exhibition to survey her career in depth, this publication provides a comprehensive account of Yiadom-Boakye's practice over the past two decades. With essays by the poet Elizabeth Alexander and curators Andrea Schlieker and Isabella Maidment, alongside new writing by Yiadom-Boakye, this monograph reflects the dual aspects of the artist's practice as both a painter and a writer and provides an insight into her creative process. Lynette Yiadom-Boakye, born in 1977, is a British artist and writer. She attended Central Saint Martins College of Art and Design, Falmouth College of Arts and the Royal Academy. In 2018, she was awarded the Carnegie Prize.