Image courtesy of the artist, Corvi-Mora, London, and Jack Shainman Gallery
British artist Lynette Yiadom-Boakye has over 70 paintings and charcoal drawings from 2020 to 2023 on display for the first time at the Guggenheim Museum. Curated by Andrea Schlieker, Director of Exhibitions and Displays at Tate Britain, and Lucía Agirre, Curator at the Guggenheim Museum Bilbao, the exhibition – No Twilight Too Mighty – provides a rich opportunity to observe the continuum in the artist’s practice of creating evocative paintings that relate to the human experience.
Born to Ghanaian parents, Yiadom-Boakye has recently returned to making charcoal drawings, which have a sense of immediacy due to their intimate scale and air of improvisation. When viewed alongside the paintings, the depth of the artist’s skillful handling of different media is obvious. She is well known for her paintings of timeless subjects in everyday moments of joy, camaraderie, and solitude. Yiadom-Boakye’s paintings and drawings are characterized by her distinctive use of color, light, and gesture. She uses a limited palette of dark tones and contrasts them with bright accents or backgrounds. Her lush oils on canvas or coarse linen portray fictitious characters rendered in loose brushwork.
Yiadom-Boakye does not work from models or photographs but rather invents her subjects from memory, imagination, and observation. Her figures are often engaged in everyday activities or moments of introspection, suggesting a sense of intimacy and mystery.
Image courtesy of the artist, Corvi-Mora, London, and Jack Shainman Gallery
Guggenheim museum writes:
“The artist does not work from models, rather the figures are composites, drawn from different sources including scrapbooks and drawings, memories and observations of everyday life. Details including clothing or costumes, footwear, or the lack thereof dislocate the figures from any particular time or place. The paintings invite the viewer to slow down and to carefully observe; to enter the imaginary visual tales the artist spins. The poetic and thought-provoking titles of the works reinforce that much is left to the imagination of the beholder.”
The No Twilight Too Mighty exhibition, which opened on 31 Mar 2023 will close on 10 Sep 2023 and it can be viewed at any of the four Guggenheim galleries. Visitors are able to access a playlist created by Yiadom-Boakye exclusively for this exhibition, and it is providing more context about the inspirational sources for her work.
