Lynette Yiadom-Boakye is undoubtedly one of her generation’s most intriguing painters. Her style is heavily influenced by the old masters, painters such as Goya and Manet, but there is no doubt that her work is the product of a modern mind.

Lynette Yiadom-Boakye (born 1977) is a British painter and writer. She is best known for her portraits of fictitious subjects painted in muted colours. Her work has contributed to the renaissance in painting the black figure.

This autumn, Tate Britain is staging an exhibition of over 80 works by the Turner-nominated artist, the most comprehensive survey of her career to date.

Yiadom-Boakye depicts black subjects out of time and context, pulled from a combination of her imagination and found images and many of her paintings could represent people from 100 years ago or more.

She often omits items of clothing, such as shoes, so that her figures cannot be placed too firmly in any single decade, and because so little is revealed about individuals in her in paintings, inviting viewers to project their own interpretations, and raise important questions of identity and representation.

Speaking of her practice, Yiadom-Boakye says: ‘I write about the things I can’t paint and paint the things I can’t write about.’ The written word plays a huge part in her life and work and the enigmatic titles she chooses for her paints only strengthens the mystery.

Yiadom-Boakye was awarded the prestigious Carnegie Prize in 2018 and was the 2012 recipient of the Pinchuk Foundation Future Generation Prize. She was shortlisted for the Turner Prize in 2013.

This exhibition will surely prove a captivating one and is set to be one of the hottest offerings of autumn 2020.

The exhibition is open form 18th November 2020 until 9th May 2021, open daily from 10 AM – 6PM.

Visit here for more information.