Lynette Yiadom-Boakye. No Twilight Too Mighty

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Mar 31 – Sep 10, 2023

Guggenheim Museum Bilbao

Lynette Yiadom-Boakye, A Nocturnal Intensity, 2022 / Courtesy the artist, Corvi-Mora, London, and Jack Shainman Gallery, New York

The Guggenheim Museum Bilbao presents Lynette Yiadom-Boakye. No Twilight Too Mighty, an exhibition that shows for the first time a selection of over 60 paintings and charcoal drawings created between 2020 and 2023 by artist and writer Lynette Yiadom-Boakye. The show 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.

Lynette Yiadom-Boakye, Maze, 2021 / Courtesy the Artist, Corvi-Mora, London, and Jack Shainman Gallery, New York © Lynette Yiadom-Boakye, Bilbao 2023

Lynette Yiadom-Boakye, Ambassadoria, 2022 / Courtesy the Artist, Corvi-Mora, London, and Jack Shainman Gallery, New York © Lynette Yiadom-Boakye, Bilbao 2023

Lynette Yiadom-Boakye, Goshawk, 2020 / Courtesy the Artist, Corvi-Mora, London, and Jack Shainman Gallery, New York © Lynette Yiadom-Boakye, Bilbao 2023

Lynette Yiadom-Boakye, Many Menaces, 2022 / Courtesy the Artist, Corvi-Mora, London, and Jack Shainman Gallery, New York © Lynette Yiadom-Boakye, Bilbao 2023

Lynette Yiadom-Boakye (b. 1977, London) is celebrated for her paintings of timeless subjects in everyday moments of happiness, camaraderie, 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. Animals such as birds, foxes, owls and dogs that make regular appearances in Yiadom- Boakye’s work, casually suggesting they are pets even if some are indeed wild animals, add to the sense of intrigue. 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.

Lynette Yiadom-Boakye, Harbour The Anointed, 2020 / Courtesy the Artist, Corvi-Mora, London, and Jack Shainman Gallery, New York © Lynette Yiadom-Boakye, Bilbao 2023

Lynette Yiadom-Boakye, Ecstatic Streams, 2021 / Courtesy the Artist, Corvi-Mora, London, and Jack Shainman Gallery, New York © Lynette Yiadom-Boakye, Bilbao 2023

Lynette Yiadom-Boakye, Divine Repose, 2021 / Courtesy the Artist, Corvi-Mora, London, and Jack Shainman Gallery, New York © Lynette Yiadom-Boakye, Bilbao 2023

Lynette Yiadom-Boakye, Columbidae, 2022 / Courtesy the Artist, Corvi-Mora, London, and Jack Shainman Gallery, New York © Lynette Yiadom-Boakye, Bilbao 2023

Lynette Yiadom-Boakye, Above The Heart And Below The Mind, 2021 / Courtesy the Artist, Corvi-Mora, London, and Jack Shainman Gallery, New York © Lynette Yiadom-Boakye, Bilbao 2023

Yiadom-Boakye’s practice is based on a profound interest in what can be achieved in paint, its materiality, the potential of color and of composition. Her interest in the material aspects of painting led her from a meticulous approach of working with live models to making figures of her own creation, thus freeing her to paint more spontaneously with less concern for technical precision.

The artist’s parallel practice of writing is visible in the imaginative titles that accompany the artworks acting as companions rather than explanations of the works. The artist has described her relationship to the two disciplines saying: ‘I write about the things I can’t paint and paint the things I can’t write about.’

Lynette Yiadom-Boakye, 8pm December Sunday, 2022 / Courtesy the artist, Corvi-Mora, London, and Jack Shainman Gallery, New York

Lynette Yiadom-Boakye, Aquatic Warbler, 2021 / Courtesy the Artist, Corvi-Mora, London, and Jack Shainman Gallery, New York © Lynette Yiadom-Boakye, Bilbao 2023

Lynette Yiadom-Boakye, No Twilight Too Mighty, installation view

Literature, poetry and music are some of the creative forces that feed Yiadom-Boakye’s practices as a painter and a writer. Authors such as James Baldwin, Okwui Enwezor, and Toni Morrison serve as ongoing sources of inspiration for the artist. A selection of such texts will be on display in a reading room adjacent to the exhibition. Likewise, a playlist compiled by the artist specifically for this exhibition will be available to visitors.