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: Ifor Pritchard

Montage of Ifor Pritchard paintings

Since moving to Ceredigion, we’ve discovered so many incredible Welsh artists. The latest in that line is Ifor Pritchard. I adore his expressive, impasto style; thick strokes of oil paint confidently applied with brush and knife to the canvas.

Pritchard (1940-2010) was a painter whose subject matter consisted mainly of the slate quarrying industry that he saw around him growing up in Carmel, Gwynedd in North Wales. He created portraits of the quarrymen (at work and at the pub), the quarry managers, the work horses, the machinery.

For many years, he worked as an art teacher mainly at Ysgol Sir Huw Owen in Caernarfon from where he retired in 1992. It wasn’t until 2007 that he mounted his first exhibition (of 30 works) in Glynllifon, south of Caernarfon.

Memories are my inspiration. Memories of a childhood in the village of Carmel in the ’40s. This is a village situated within a stone’s throw of the Dyffryn Nantlle slate quarries and was, therefore, a village that was almost totally dependent on the slate. After a lifetime of producing and teaching art, memories now transport me back to those early days. It is an endeavour to depict an extremely claustrophobic life that was, in the main, based on the quarry and the chapel. I am only interested in the human aspect of the industry. I have slate, but not the dust, in my veins.

Craig yr Oesoedd/True Grit by Myrddin ap Dafydd is an 80-page, bi-lingual study of some of his works.

Image credits:
Artnet | Mutual Art

Designer Desire: Hywel Harries

Montage of Hywel Harries paintings

Hywel Harries (1921-1990) was a Welsh fine artist specialising in oil paintings of landscapes and also book & magazine illustrations and cartoons.

Since living in Wales and getting to know our local area, some of his scenes have become very familiar. For example, Machynlleth with its prominent clock tower (shown above), Aberystwyth seafront and Aberaeron harbour.

He tried his had at many artistic styles; I particularly like his 1970s interpretations of Sydney Curnow Vosper’s famous Salem painting (top of the montage above).

Alongside his own practice, he had a long career in art education. He became art master at Machynlleth secondary school in 1950 moving on to becoming head of the art department in Arwyn Grammar School, Aberystwyth in 1954. Following local reorganisation of secondary education, he held the post at Penglais School. He retired from education in 1981.

In 1963, he founded the Ceredigion Art Society. He also served time on the boards of the Royal Cambrian Academy, the Art and Craft Committee of the Council of the National Eisteddfod as well as the North Wales Federation of Art Groups.

© Bangor University | Ceredigion Museum | National Museum Wales | The National Library of Wales

Designer Desire: Julian Merrow-Smith

Montage of oil paintings by Julian Merrow-Smith

Julian Merrow-Smith is a British fine artist based in Provençal France. He paints landscapes and portraits however, it’s his still life works that we love the most.

These compositions often contain fruit & veg, bread, onions, garlic, kitchenalia, tumblers of whisky and bottles of wine and olive oil. I love his technique and confident style; his paintings are full of life and the way he captures light, shadow and reflection is just magical.

He was commissioned by Cunard to paint 8 paintings for the Queen Mary II ocean liner and was twice selected for the National Portrait Gallery BP Portrait Award (2017 [the self-portrait below] & 1999). His work has been bought by collectors from all around the world.

In 2005, Julian Merrow-Smith began his Postcard from Provence project whereby, each day, he creates a small painting which he then auctions off, on his own website, to registered users. Each work is usually around the  To date (21st May 2021) he has produced 3,244 oil on board works as part of the scheme.

I’ve now registered, in the hope that one day I’ll be the winning bidder of one of his beautiful still lifes.

Self-portrait oil painting by Julian Merrow-SmithAll image credits: Julian Merrow-Smith©