Designer Desire: Lynette Yiadom-Boakye

'Any number of preoccupations' by Lynette Yiadom-Boakye

I have to thank SuAndi at National Black Arts Alliance (NBAA) for this week introducing me to the wonderful work of Lynette Yiadom-Boakye.

Lynette Yiadom-Boakye (b. 1977) is a British fine artist born to Ghanaian parents in London. Her artistic practice is mainly in large-scale, oil on canvas, figurative portraits of fictional people. Her artworks can command auction prices in the hundreds of thousands of pounds.

She attended Central Saint Martins College of Art and Design, Falmouth College of Arts and the Royal Academy Schools.

Yiadom-Boakye has been represented by the Jack Shainman Gallery since 2010 when she had her first solo show entitled, Essays and Documents.

In 2013, she was a finalist for the Turner Prize. She was awarded the Carnegie Prize in 2018. The following year, Yiadom-Boakye was included in Ghana’s inaugural pavilion at the 57th Venice Biennale.

As well as her own practice, she currently lectures part-time at the Ruskin School of Art in Oxford.

Her works can be found in the collections of institutions such as the Victoria & Albert Museum, The Tate, Museum of Modern Art (MoMA), the Museum of Contemporary Art in Chicago, the National Museum of African Art at the Smithsonian Institute in Washington D.C. and San Francisco Museum of Modern Art (SFMOMA) amongst others.

Portrait by Lynette Yiadom-Boakye Portrait by Lynette Yiadom-Boakye

I work from scrapbooks, I work from images I collect, I work from life a little bit, I seek out the imagery I need. I take photos. All of that is then composed on the canvas.

'The hours behind you' by Lynette Yiadom-Boakye 'Light of the lit wick' by Lynette Yiadom-Boakye

Blackness has never been other to me. Therefore, I’ve never felt the need to explain its presence in the work anymore than I’ve felt the need to explain my presence in the world, however often I’m asked. I’ve never liked being told who I am, how I should speak, what to think and how to think it. I’ve never needed telling.

Portrait by Lynette Yiadom-Boakye 'A passion like no other' by Lynette Yiadom-Boakye

It isn’t so much about placing black people in the canon as it is about saying that we’ve always been here, we’ve always existed, self-sufficient, outside of nightmares and imaginations, pre and post “discovery”, and in no way defined or limited by who sees us.

Portrait by Lynette Yiadom-Boakye

I don’t use black pigment… It completely deadens things. I use a mixture of brown and blue instead.

The exhibition – Lynette Yiadom-Boakye: Fly In League With The Night – is on at Tate Britain until 26th February 2023. It assembles approximately 70 works created between 2003 and the present in the most extensive representation of the artist’s career to date.

Credits:
Jack Shainman Gallery | Tate

 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

Designer Desire: Alice Fox

Montage of Alice Fox artworks

Alice Fox is a West Yorkshire-based artist who is hugely influenced by the natural world; the land, the coast and man’s impact on it.

She weaves, sews, twists and plaits organic and found materials; from leaves, to nettle fibre, to wild dandelion stems, to flax that she grows on her allotment. She uses limpet shells, old garden tools, beach-combed plastic, found metal objects. She has even woven the ubiquitous plastic bag, repurposing it into string.

Her work is incredibly beautiful and inspiring – delicate, strong and tactile. Have a browse of her Instagram feed – it’s fabulous!

My process-led practice is based on personal engagement with landscape and has sustainability at its heart. I am fascinated by the detail of organic things and my work celebrates and carries an essence of what I experience in the natural world.

Alice recently published a book, entitled Wild Textiles: Grown, Foraged, Found which is available on her website, Amazon, Batsford Books and WH Smith.

 

 
 
 
 
 
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A post shared by Alice Fox (@alicefoxartist)

 
 
 
 
 

Harry Charles Tim

Montage of Harry Charles Tim paintings

Harry Charles Tim (b. 1956) is a fine art painter based in Stratford-on-Avon. In a past life, he was a soldier in the Royal Regiment of Fusiliers. After finishing his service, he immigrated to Germany, where he initially became a dealer in antiques and art before himself becoming an artist.

Tim is represented by Meander & Mooch and Montpellier Gallery. Examples of his work also appear online at auction and at Saatchi Art.

Portrait of Harry Charles Timcredit

Additional image credits:
Meander & Mooch | Montpellier Gallery

Designer Desire: Oskar with a K

Oskar with a K montage of graffiti artworks

I’ve just realised that it’s not very often that we’ve featured a graffiti artist in our Designer Desire series. As luck would have it, I’m very familiar with – if not the work itself, then – some of the locations of work by Oskar with a K.

In a past life, I worked in a few different arts organisations in Manchester city centre, one of which was directly opposite the Ritz where his Ooh Child work is situated. At a later date, I worked in the city’s Northern Quarter, and I walked past the former public toilet where his Hello work now lives on a twice-daily basis.

Here’s what Oskar with a K says about himself:

I would describe my work as graphic design unhindered by scale. I love working in public space, engaging fully with the environment I’m in and contributing to a world in which art and design is implicit to our cityscapes.

 

 
 
 
 
 
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A post shared by @oskarwitha.k