Fly In League With The Night

Dramatically reinventing the lineage of Goya, Sargent and Manet, Lynette Yiadom-Boakye imbues the Black subjects in her paintings with atmospheric grace and elegance 

Taking inspiration from the techniques of historic European portraiture, Lynette Yiadom-Boakye's oil paintings could almost be from a much older era if it were not for the contemporary details of the Black subjects that populate her work. Though her subjects are people conjured in her imagination, Yiadom-Boakye imbues her portraits with a near-tangible spirit through her deliberate brush strokes and rich dark tones.

The result is paintings that seem to exist outside of time while still remaining grounded in reality. This lavishly illustrated volume of nearly 80 paintings and drawings--some of which have never been exhibited before--accompanies the first major survey of Yiadom-Boakye's work, shown at Tate Britain. In addition to new fiction writing by the artist, this publication includes in-depth thematic essays on Yiadom-Boakye's artistic development, reflecting the dual aspects of the artist's career as both a painter and a writer and offering an intimate insight into her creative process.

Lynette Yiadom-Boakye (born 1977) is a British artist and writer acclaimed for her enigmatic portraits of fictitious people. Her paintings often allude to historic European portraiture – notably Thomas Gainsborough, Francisco de Goya, John Singer Sargent and Edouard Manet – yet in subject matter and technique her approach is decidedly contemporary. Through her focus on the depiction of imagined black characters Yiadom-Boakye’s paintings raise important questions about identity and representation. This lavishly illustrated volume accompanies the first major survey of Yiadom-Boakye’s work. Thematic essays offer indepth discussion of the development of the artist’s practice since her graduation from the Royal Academy of Art, London, in 2003 and her artwork is presented alongside her own writing and poetry. The publication positions Yiadom-Boakye’s extraordinary creative output over the past twenty years within a wider history of portraiture and representation, with particular focus on black subjects.

• Item Weight: 1.74 pounds
• Hardcover: 192 pages
• ISBN-10: 1942884656
• ISBN-13: 9781942884651
• Publisher: D.A.P./Tate (November 17, 2020)
• Language: English