Lynette Yiadom-Boakye: Fly In League With The Night
By (Author) Isabella Maidment
Edited by Andrea Schlieker
Tate Publishing
Tate Publishing
15th January 2021
6th October 2020
United Kingdom
General
Non Fiction
History of art
Exhibition catalogues and specific collections
Paintings and painting
Portraits and self-portraiture in art
759.2
Paperback
192
Width 230mm, Height 275mm
A groundbreaking and essential survey of the art of Lynette Yiadom-Boakye, offering an in-depth discussion of the development of the artist and positioning her work within a wider history of portraiture.
Lynette Yiadom-Boakye: Fly In League With The Night celebrates the work of one of the most significant and acclaimed figurative painters of her generation. Fact and fiction fuse in 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 or place: they feel at once familiar yet mysterious. This ambiguity resonates again in the enigmatic 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, and the things I can't write, I paint.'
This perceptive and engaging publication provides a comprehensive account of Yiadom-Boakye's practice over the past two decades. With contributions by the celebrated poet Elizabeth Alexander and curators Andrea Schlieker and Isabella Maidment, alongside new writing by Yiadom-Boakye, Fly In League With The Night reflects the dual aspects of the artist's career as both a painter and a writer and offers an intimate insight into her creative process.
Andrea Schlieker is Director of Exhibitions and Displays, Tate Britain. Isabella Maidment is Curator, Contemporary British Art