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拍品專文
"The timelessness is completely important. It’s partly about removing things that would become in some way nostalgic…I think that’s why I like the outdoors, because it removes sense of time and I want the painting to feel timeless…" - Lynette Yiadom-Boakye
An elegant, life-sized figure stands with her back to the viewer against a serene, misty backdrop, a shadow trailing at her heels. It is morning. Barefoot and draped in a simple blue shift dress that hints at nightwear, she wears a brimmed hat that could suggest a certain formality, yet instead here evokes an early coastal morning's tranquility. One might imagine her waking in a seaside beach house, descending to the kitchen to make coffee, then stepping onto the deck as it brews, watching the waves roll in beneath the low morning clouds while the sun begins to break through. Yet, another interpretation of this scene might sense not tranquility but a certain heaviness, perhaps sorrow or loneliness. Such is the magic of Lynette Yiadom-Boakye’s work. The enigmatically titled 11am Monday exemplifies Yiadom-Boakye’s mastery in creating vivid, imagined worlds through her distinctive economy of form, deliberate absence of narrative, and painterly prowess.
Enacting an almost minimalist approach to portraiture, Yiadom-Boakye’s practice begins and ends with the figure. The figures in Yiadom-Boakye’s paintings are not real people; rather, the artist conjures her subjects from found imagery and her own imagination. Almost all of the figures in Yiadom-Boakye’s paintings are Black, though the artist maintains that this is not an explicit political statement but merely a natural product of her mind and hand. In her own words, “It isn’t so much about placing black people in the canon as it is about saying that we’ve always been here, we’ve always existed, self-sufficient, outside of nightmares and imaginations, pre and post “discovery”, and in no way defined or limited by who sees us.” Yet, although Yiadom-Boakye did not intend her paintings to be explicitly political, they have a significant effect: they rectify the long-standing omission of Black figures from the Western artistic tradition by integrating them into the very canon that previously excluded them.
Lynette Yiadom-Boakye indeed engages with historical portraiture in her work but deliberately avoids the symbolic details typical of traditional portraits. This approach achieves two significant results. On the surface, Yiadom-Boakye aims for her paintings to feel timeless, free from specific historical or geographical contexts. She explains, “The timelessness is completely important. It’s partly about removing things that would become in some way nostalgic…I think that’s why I like the outdoors, because it removes sense of time and I want the painting to feel timeless” (L. Yiadom-Boakye, “Lynette Yiadom-Boakye’s Fictive Figures,” Interview Magazine, May 2017). For instance, while one might interpret 11am Monday as depicting a coastal scene, Yiadom-Boakye offers no concrete evidence to confirm such details or to define the subject’s surroundings. Secondly, her minimalist approach contrasts sharply with traditional portraiture, where subjects often included wealthy, authoritative figures eager to display their status through various accoutrement such as invaluable jewels and expensive fashions à la mode. Unlike these portraits, Yiadom-Boakye’s subjects do not need to prove their worth; their presence on the canvas alone affirms their significance. In her paintings, the Black figure is presented unapologetically, simply existing without needing justification.
In 11am Monday, as with the rest of her remarkable body of work, Lynette Yiadom-Boakye draws on traditional elements of line, color, and scale. The absence of a specific narrative in the painting allows viewers to project their own stories onto it, while also encouraging a focus on the painting’s physical surface and Yiadom-Boakye’s technical prowess. On closer inspection, the urgency of her brushstrokes, the nuanced color contrasts, and her distinct yet fluid lines become evident. The deep blues of the figure’s dress, combined with rich violets, blacks, and flashes of white and green, suggest a silky texture and a sense of movement, even though the dress is only loosely defined.
The surrounding haze of grays and whites evokes a sense of air, making it an integral part of the composition. Using a dark, earthy palette of blues, browns, and cool grays, Yiadom-Boakye connects to a lineage of artists from the Old Masters like Goya, Velázquez, Hals, and Sargent to Modernists such as Manet, Degas, and Sickert. Like these predecessors, she excels in representing both form and space, mastering not only the depiction of figures but also the spatial depth in her work, such that air, itself, becomes a subject in its own right.
Lynette Yiadom-Boakye was recently the subject of a major, critically acclaimed retrospective, Lynette Yiadom-Boakye: Fly in League with the Night, organized by Tate Britain in collaboration with Stockholm’s Moderna Museet, the Kunstsammlung Nordrhein-Westfalen in Düsseldorf, and Mudam Luxembourg. Her work is included in numerous institutional collections, including the Tate Collection, London; Museum of Modern Art, New York; the Carnegie Museum of Art, Pittsburgh; The Institute of Contemporary Art, Boston; the Kunstmuseum Basel; the Minneapolis Institute of Art; the Museum of Contemporart Art, Los Angeles; and the Yale Center for British Art, Connecticut.
An elegant, life-sized figure stands with her back to the viewer against a serene, misty backdrop, a shadow trailing at her heels. It is morning. Barefoot and draped in a simple blue shift dress that hints at nightwear, she wears a brimmed hat that could suggest a certain formality, yet instead here evokes an early coastal morning's tranquility. One might imagine her waking in a seaside beach house, descending to the kitchen to make coffee, then stepping onto the deck as it brews, watching the waves roll in beneath the low morning clouds while the sun begins to break through. Yet, another interpretation of this scene might sense not tranquility but a certain heaviness, perhaps sorrow or loneliness. Such is the magic of Lynette Yiadom-Boakye’s work. The enigmatically titled 11am Monday exemplifies Yiadom-Boakye’s mastery in creating vivid, imagined worlds through her distinctive economy of form, deliberate absence of narrative, and painterly prowess.
Enacting an almost minimalist approach to portraiture, Yiadom-Boakye’s practice begins and ends with the figure. The figures in Yiadom-Boakye’s paintings are not real people; rather, the artist conjures her subjects from found imagery and her own imagination. Almost all of the figures in Yiadom-Boakye’s paintings are Black, though the artist maintains that this is not an explicit political statement but merely a natural product of her mind and hand. In her own words, “It isn’t so much about placing black people in the canon as it is about saying that we’ve always been here, we’ve always existed, self-sufficient, outside of nightmares and imaginations, pre and post “discovery”, and in no way defined or limited by who sees us.” Yet, although Yiadom-Boakye did not intend her paintings to be explicitly political, they have a significant effect: they rectify the long-standing omission of Black figures from the Western artistic tradition by integrating them into the very canon that previously excluded them.
Lynette Yiadom-Boakye indeed engages with historical portraiture in her work but deliberately avoids the symbolic details typical of traditional portraits. This approach achieves two significant results. On the surface, Yiadom-Boakye aims for her paintings to feel timeless, free from specific historical or geographical contexts. She explains, “The timelessness is completely important. It’s partly about removing things that would become in some way nostalgic…I think that’s why I like the outdoors, because it removes sense of time and I want the painting to feel timeless” (L. Yiadom-Boakye, “Lynette Yiadom-Boakye’s Fictive Figures,” Interview Magazine, May 2017). For instance, while one might interpret 11am Monday as depicting a coastal scene, Yiadom-Boakye offers no concrete evidence to confirm such details or to define the subject’s surroundings. Secondly, her minimalist approach contrasts sharply with traditional portraiture, where subjects often included wealthy, authoritative figures eager to display their status through various accoutrement such as invaluable jewels and expensive fashions à la mode. Unlike these portraits, Yiadom-Boakye’s subjects do not need to prove their worth; their presence on the canvas alone affirms their significance. In her paintings, the Black figure is presented unapologetically, simply existing without needing justification.
In 11am Monday, as with the rest of her remarkable body of work, Lynette Yiadom-Boakye draws on traditional elements of line, color, and scale. The absence of a specific narrative in the painting allows viewers to project their own stories onto it, while also encouraging a focus on the painting’s physical surface and Yiadom-Boakye’s technical prowess. On closer inspection, the urgency of her brushstrokes, the nuanced color contrasts, and her distinct yet fluid lines become evident. The deep blues of the figure’s dress, combined with rich violets, blacks, and flashes of white and green, suggest a silky texture and a sense of movement, even though the dress is only loosely defined.
The surrounding haze of grays and whites evokes a sense of air, making it an integral part of the composition. Using a dark, earthy palette of blues, browns, and cool grays, Yiadom-Boakye connects to a lineage of artists from the Old Masters like Goya, Velázquez, Hals, and Sargent to Modernists such as Manet, Degas, and Sickert. Like these predecessors, she excels in representing both form and space, mastering not only the depiction of figures but also the spatial depth in her work, such that air, itself, becomes a subject in its own right.
Lynette Yiadom-Boakye was recently the subject of a major, critically acclaimed retrospective, Lynette Yiadom-Boakye: Fly in League with the Night, organized by Tate Britain in collaboration with Stockholm’s Moderna Museet, the Kunstsammlung Nordrhein-Westfalen in Düsseldorf, and Mudam Luxembourg. Her work is included in numerous institutional collections, including the Tate Collection, London; Museum of Modern Art, New York; the Carnegie Museum of Art, Pittsburgh; The Institute of Contemporary Art, Boston; the Kunstmuseum Basel; the Minneapolis Institute of Art; the Museum of Contemporart Art, Los Angeles; and the Yale Center for British Art, Connecticut.