Lynette Yiadom-Boakye. No Twilight Too Mighty

British artist and writer Lynette Yiadom-Boakye (b. 1977, London) is celebrated for her paintings of timeless subjects in everyday moments of happiness, comradery, and solitude. Her lush oils on canvas or coarse linen portray fictitious characters rendered in loose brushwork set against dramatic backgrounds. 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.

No Twilight Too Mighty presents a selection of over 70 paintings and charcoal drawings from 2020 to 2023 on display for the first time. The exhibition thus provides a rich opportunity to observe the continuum in the artist’s practice of creating evocative paintings that relate to the human experience. Yiadom-Boakye has recently returned to making charcoal drawings, which have a sense of immediacy given their intimate scale and air of improvisation. Seen in tandem with the paintings, the depth of the artist’s skillful handling of different media is evident.