Lynette Yiadom-Boakye: Fly In League With The Night

Lynette Yiadom-Boakye, Nightjar, 2022. Private Collection. © Courtesy Lynette Yiadom-Boakye, Corvi-Mora, London, and Jack Shainman Gallery, New York. Photo: Sam Day

24 November 2022 – 26 February 2023

Open daily 10.00 – 18.00

For public information call +44(0)20 7887 8888, visit tate.org.uk or follow @Tate #LynetteYiadomBoakye

Tate Britain presents Lynette Yiadom-Boakye’s major survey exhibition Fly In League With The Night. Widely considered to be one of the most important figurative painters working today, Yiadom-Boakye (b.1977) is celebrated for her enigmatic oil paintings of human subjects who are entirely imagined by the artist. This exhibition brings together over 70 paintings spanning two decades, including works from her graduate exhibition, as well as three new paintings presented here for the very first time.

The most extensive exhibition of the artist’s work to date, Fly In League With The Night was originally presented at Tate Britain in 2020 but was cut short by the national lockdown. UK visitors have a special opportunity to see the exhibition at Tate Britain again, following a critically acclaimed European tour.

The figures in Yiadom-Boakye’s paintings feel both familiar and mysterious. Each of her works is created from a composite archive of found images and her own imagination, raising questions of identity and representation. Her paintings are created in spontaneous and instinctive bursts, revealing expressive, short brushstrokes and a distinctive palette of dark, dramatic tones contrasted with flashes of brightness. By stripping away the signifiers of any particular era, her figures seem to exist outside of a specific time or place, inviting viewers to project their own narratives, memories and interpretations. Surveying the development of Yiadom-Boakye’s unique formal language from 2003 to the present day, the exhibition will include early paintings such as First, created for her postgraduate exhibition at the Royal Academy Schools in 2003, alongside more recent examples of her best-known paintings including A Passion Like No Other 2012, Amaranthine 2018 and For the Sake of Angels 2018.

Writing is central to Yiadom-Boakye’s artistic practice, as she has explained: “I write about the things I can’t paint and paint the things I can’t write about.” Her paintings are coupled with poetic, seemingly unrelated titles, such as Tie the Temptress to the Trojan 2016 and To Improvise a Mountain 2018. This exhibition is accompanied by a fully illustrated catalogue including writing by Yiadom-Boakye, the exhibition curators, and the American poet and writer Elizabeth Alexander.

Lynette Yiadom-Boakye was born in 1977 in London, where she lives and works today. She is of Ghanaian descent and in 2019 participated in the critically acclaimed Ghana Freedom pavilion at the International Venice Biennale. In 2018 she was awarded the prestigious Carnegie International Prize and was shortlisted for the Turner Prize in 2013. Her work is represented in museum collections around the world and she has exhibited internationally including solo exhibitions at Mudam Luxembourg – Musée d’ArtModerne Grand-Duc Jean (2022); Moderna Museet, Stockholm (2021); KunstsammlungNordrhein-Westfalen, Düsseldorf (2021); New Museum of Contemporary Art, New York (2017); the Kunsthalle Basel, Switzerland (2016); Haus der Kunst, Munich (2015); and the Serpentine Gallery, London (2015).

LATE AT TATE BRITAIN
2 December 2022, 18.00 – 22.00

Curated by young people, the Late at Tate Britain is an evening of free music, talks across the gallery, inspired by the work of Lynette Yiadom-Boakye. Visitors will be able to watch live music, featuring genres such as neo-soul that have inspired Yiadom-Boakye’s practise, as well as poetry and spoken word performances, and a unique session of jazz life drawing with the horn section of TC & The Groove Family, who will fill the gallery with jazz to inspire visitors to create their own drawing. There will also be the opportunity to participate in postcard making, an embroidery workshop with textiles designer Rebeckah Kemi Apara and a dream journaling workshop conducted by artists Indiana Lawrence and Brook Tate. For the full schedule please visit: https://www.tate.org.uk/whats-on/tate-britain/late-at-tate-britain

LYNETTE YIADOM-BOAKYE & DURO OLOWU
10 February 2023, 18.30 – 20.00, Clore Auditorium at Tate Britain

Lynette Yiadom-Boakye will be in conversation with fashion designer and curator Duro Olowu, offering a rare insight into her artistic practice. BSL interpreted, with tickets available online.

Lynette Yiadom-Boakye: Fly In League With The Night

Edited by Isabella Maidment and Andrea Schleiker

Paperback, £40.

Lavishly illustrated, this catalogue offers the most extensive overview of Yiadom-Boakye’s work to date. The exhibition book includes thematic essays and in-depth discussion of the development of the artist’s practice since her graduation from the Royal Academy of Art, London, in 2003, presenting her artwork alongside her own writing and poetry. The publication also positions Yiadom-Boakye’s extraordinary creative output over the past twenty years within a wider history of portraiture and representation, with a particular focus on black subjects.

Lynette Yiadom-Boakye: Fly In League With The Night is curated by Andrea Schlieker, Director of Exhibitions and Displays, Tate Britain and Isabella Maidment, Curator of Contemporary British Art with Amy Emmerson Martin and Aïcha Mehrez, Assistant Curators.

Exhibition organised by Tate Britain in collaboration with Moderna Museet, Stockholm, Kunstsammlung Nordrhein-Westfalen, Düsseldorf, and Mudam Luxembourg – Musée d’Art Moderne Grand-Duc Jean.

Lynette Yiadom-Boakye: Fly In League With The Night is supported by Denise Coates Foundation with additional support from the Lynette Yiadom-Boakye Exhibition Supporters Circle, Tate Americas Foundation, Tate International Council and Tate Patrons.

For press information contact kitty.malton@tate.org.uk or sian.thompson@tate.org.uk. High resolution press images can be downloaded from tate.org.uk/press

About Denise Coates Foundation

Denise Coates Foundation, established in 2012 by Denise Coates CBE, is a registered charity. Its primary purpose is to make a positive difference to people’s lives. The Foundation has to-date identified causes to which it has donated/committed to donate in excess of £75m.

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