In this painting Yiadom-Boakye poses a figure adorned in what appears to be a feathered garment against a dark brown background, playing with the relationship between darkness and light, as well as visibility and ambiguity. As in all of Yiadom-Boakye’s works, this person is imagined rather than real. Calling attention to the lack of Black subjects represented in art history, the artist creates her fictional portraits as a way of “allowing the paint to bring something to life, or [of] thinking about painting as a language in itself.”
2023
Kids label from 2025
A skylark is a type of bird. Can you find the feathers painted here?
This portrait might look like a real person, but the artist imagined them. She gets ideas for her figures from taking photos and looking at different people.
She once said: “I think less about the figures than I do about how they are painted.”
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Lynette Yiadom-Boakye
British, born 1977 27 works onlineLynette Yiadom-Boakye’s canvases showcase complex palettes that luxuriate, overwhelmingly but not exclusively, in shades of brown. The subject matter is central: Yiadom-Boakye paints brown-skinned figures, both men and women, typically situated against backgrounds that barely hint at being anyplace at all.
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Arthur Jafa—Less Is Morbid
1 NorthOriginally from Tupelo, Mississippi, and trained as an architect and cinematographer, he has become well-known for his collages, montages, assemblages, and installations—combining images imbued with what he calls “affective capacity,” or the emotional power of association.
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