Paintings by Lynette Yiadom-Boakye
Lynette Yiadom-Boakye was born in London to parents who worked as nurses for the National Health Service after emigrating from Ghana. She briefly studied at Central Saint Martins College of Art and Design before attending the Falmouth College of Arts, where she earned her undergraduate degree in 2000. Yiadom-Boakye completed her MA degree in Fine Art at the Royal Academy Schools in 2003.
Yiadom-Boakye’s figurative oil paintings contain predominantly black fictional characters, existing in no specific place or time, who are presented without our concerns or anxieties but with contemplative expressions and relaxed gestures. This absence of a fixed narrative prompts the viewers to project their own meanings onto the scene. While the complex politics of painting black figures is an essential part of her work, Yiadom-Boakye’s main emphasis at the start is always the actual language of painting and how that relates to its subject matter.
Yiadom-Boakye’s paintings are rooted in a traditional formal manner in regards to such considerations as line, color, and scale. However, Yiadom-Boakye’s choice of subjects and her handling of the paint medium is distinctly contemporary in style. The characteristic dark palette of her work, with its raw and muted colors, creates a feeling of stillness that contributes to the timeless nature of her subjects. 
Lynette Yiadom-Boakye’s work was recognized in 2010 by Nigerian curator and art critic Okwui Enwezor, who gave her an exhibition at the Studio Museum in Harlem, New York. In the same year, she had her first solo show, entitled “Essays and Documents” at the Jack Shainman Gallery, a contemporary art gallery in New York City, which now represents her work.
In January of 2017, Yiadom-Boakye had a second solo show at the Shainman Gallery entitled “In Lieu of a Louder Love”. In the paintings of this show, her style shifted slightly and featured a new, warmer color scheme. The figures in her works included boldly colored clothing, and more detailed and vibrant backgrounds of yellow, orange and green.
Yiadom-Boakye’s paintings were included in the Ghanaian pavilion at the Venice Biennale. Her work is conserved in numerous institutional collections, including London’s Tate Collection, New York’s The Museum of Modern Art, the Art Gallery Museum of Southern Australia in Adelaide, the Baltimore Museum of Art, and Boston’s Institute of Contemporary Art, among others.
Note: The Tate Museum in London is holding a survey of Yiadom-Boakye’s work, from December 2nd of 2020 to May 9th of 2021, after which it will later travel to the Guggenheim Museum in Bilboa, Spain.