Context: Lynette Yiadom-Boakye
​Lynette Yiadom-Boakye, A Passion Like No Other 2012
Domestic inhibition, gestural brushwork, thinned paint, resting figures, perched animals.
Yiadom-Blakey paints Black, fictional characters drawn from a range of sources including memories, observations and found materials. (Phaidon, 2022, P.326) Her figures depict people of different genders and ages, (Hessle. K, 2022, P.439) Yiadom-Blakey’s figures rarely notice the gaze of the viewer: they are consumed in their relaxed environment, enjoying leisure or creativity. Within the gallery and a wider context of the world’s media, the Black body is rarely depicted in acts or spaces of leisure. Instead we are drip fed, starving children or violents. ‘Black boys and men being coupled with criminality and violence’ (Donaldson. L,2015). For Yiadom-Blakey, race can be manipulated and reinvented, she explains how her figures are also ‘black because… I’m not white.’ Her figures are black and their blackness is political and an essential part of the work. (Rideal, L. and Soriano, Kathleen, 2018 P.147)
​Looking at her work, you see the historical references of Manet, Degas and Vermeer, with her use of traditional oil painting and the figurative context of her work (Jones. J, 2020). However, Yiadom-Blakey has inserted the figure into the historical cannon of painting, re-imagining art history by creating a space for black portraits in the huge gulf of white faces (Frankel, E., 2023). Yiadom-Blakey paintings have a timeless feel. She has successfully achieved this by not painting shoes. Footwear fashion is fast pace and can date a painting. (Rosslyn. H, 2023)
Lynette Yiadom-Boakye,A Whistle in A Wish, 2018
You may hope that glancing down the titles of her painting will give you an indication or insight into who these people are. However, this only creates further questions and possible interpretations as her poetic titles lead your thoughts down a different rabbit hole. Looking at Yiadom-Blakey’s methodology led me to become more experimental with my own, for example: ‘Self Portrait as Euphoria waiting for the bull’ and ‘Sushi, Sex and Sensual Drag’. Like Yiadom-Blakey I employed the use of alliteration when titling: ‘A Whistle in A Wish’, ‘Daydreaming of Devils’.
In a podcast, Roger Robinson describes Yiadom-Blakey’s work as ‘different bits of stories together, different images together, that look like a cohesive painting at each time. But it’s made up of lots of different fragmented things.’ (Robinson. R, 2021) This notion of the fragmentation of different stories and narratives coming together and interacting is a method I have tried to emulate within my own practice. This can be seen physically through my use of fragmented frames, and more recently, exploring the stories of women from history, with poetic titling, I am creating a dialog of women across time, while also creating more fictional spaces where feminist re-imagined futures can take place.
Bibliography
Donaldson. L, The Guardian, When the media misrepresents black men, the effects are felt in the real world, 2015 Available at: https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2015/aug/12/media-misrepresents-black-men-effects-felt-real-world Accessed: 15/04/2023
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Frankel, E. Time Out, Lynette Yiadom-Boakye: Fly In League With The Night, 2022, Available at: https://www.timeout.com/london/art/lynette-yiadom-boakye-fly-in-league-with-the-night Accessed: 10/04/2023
Green. L, Virginia Commonwealth University, Stereotypes: Negative Racial Stereotypes and Their Effect on Attitudes Toward African-Americans Available at: https://jimcrowmuseum.ferris.edu/links/essays/vcu.htm Accessed: 25/04/2023
Hessel, K. (2022) The Story of Art Without Men. First Edition . Grate Britain: Hutchinson Heinemann P439
Jeffries. S, The Guardian,‘She drunkenly asked me to do her a rudeness’: painting’s most baffling titles, 2022, Available at: https://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/2022/dec/27/paintings-baffling-titles-lynette-yiadom-boakye Accessed: 11/03/2023
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Jones. J, The Guardian, Lynette Yiadom-Boakye review – ‘she’s turned Tate Britain on its head’, 2020 , Available at: https://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/2020/dec/02/lynette-yiadom-boakye-fly-in-league-with-the-night-review-tate-britain Accessed: 11/04/2023
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Phaidon (Editors) Great Women Painters (2022) London: Phaidon Press Limited P326
Rideal, L. and Soriano, Kathleen. (2018) Madam & Eve Women Portraying Women. Edition. London: Laurence King Publishing Ltd. P147
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