Fly in League With the Night by Lynette Yiadom-Boakye

With partnership from Isabella Maidment (editor), Andrea Schlieker (editor), Elizabeth Alexander (author), Tate Britain (Gallery) (host institution), Moderna museet (Stockholm, Sweden) (host institution), Kunstsammlung Nordrhein-Westfalen (Germany) (host institution), Musée d'art moderne Grand-Duc Jean (host institution)
 
A groundbreaking and essential survey of the art of Lynette Yiadom-Boakye, offering an in-depth discussion of the development of the artist and positioning her work within a wider history of portraiture.
 
Lynette Yiadom-Boakye: Fly In League With The Night celebrates the work of one of the most significant and acclaimed figurative painters of her generation. Fact and fiction fuse in Yiadom-Boakye's paintings: they appear to be portraits, yet the people she depicts are not real but invented. Created from a composite of found images and her own imagination, her characters seem to exist outside of a specific time or place: they feel at once familiar yet mysterious. This ambiguity resonates again in the enigmatic titles she gives to her artworks. The artist is also a writer of poetry and prose, and for her, the two forms of creativity complement each other: 'The things I can't paint, I write, and the things I can't write, I paint.' 
 
This perceptive and engaging publication provides a comprehensive account of Yiadom-Boakye's practice over the past two decades. With contributions by the celebrated poet Elizabeth Alexander and curators Andrea Schlieker and Isabella Maidment, alongside new writing by Yiadom-Boakye, Fly In League With The Night reflects the dual aspects of the artist's career as both a painter and a writer and offers an intimate insight into her creative process.
 
Number of pages:
192
Weight:
1004g
Height:
149mm
Width:
220mm
Spine width:
28mm