"Subtleties of human personality it might take thousands of words to establish are here articulated by way of a few confident brushstrokes.”
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oldly composed with broad, confident strokes, the subject of Figure of Eight demurs, glancing downward. There is a deliberate ambiguity to the scene – is this a dancer preparing for a routine, a swimmer testing the water? Both are recurring figures in Lynette Yiadom-Boakye’s varied practice, which lends the gravitas of a Whistler, Sargent or Manet to fundamentally contemporary portrayals—or, as the artist herself describes them, portraits. This nomenclature merits investigation, as the paintings are not portraits in the traditional sense; rather, the figures are plucked from the artist’s imagination and mediated onto the canvas through her vital creative process, itself a heady concoction of art-historical allusion and elegant forms. Presenting a subject that is at once unknowable yet achingly familiar, Figure of Eight endlessly engages the imagination, acting as a generative source for narrative association and speculation.
Right: Gerhard Richter, Ella, 2007. Private collects ion. Art © Gerhard richter 2020
Although formal comparisons with nineteenth-century painters such as those listed above are understandable, Figure of Eight is far from an amalgam of European influences. Quite aside from the fictive nature of the “sitters”, the work is a renegotiation of race and pictorial representation. Centering on subjects of African descent, her oeuvre is a nuanced insertion of black figures into a primarily white, hegemonic tradition of painting. Allowing insight into the conceptual framework for her practice, Yiadom-Boakye has said: “Maybe I think more about black thought than black bodies. When people ask about the aspect of race in the work, they are looking for very simple or easy answers. Part of it is when you think other people are so different than yourself, you imagine that their thoughts aren’t the same. When I think about thought, I think about how much there is that is common.” (The artist in conversation with Antwaun Sargent, "Lynette Yiadom-Boakye’s Fictive Figures," Interview Magazine, May 2017, online) As such, the familiarity and intimacy of her paintings are their conceptual basis – these are universally relatable, monumental black figures.
Formally, the placement of the subject at the exact vertical center of the painting serves as a composition device to divide the canvas in half. This geometry bespeaks an interest in notions of color and form that have as much to do with abstraction as they do figuration. Giving insight into her process, Yiadom-Boakye explains: “Everything’s a composite. I work from sources. I make scrapbooks, I make drawings, and collects things that I might use later, so they are all very literal compositions in the way that I pull things together. A lot of that decision-making happens on the painting itself. In each case it’s a negotiation of how I want each figure to fill the space.” (The artist in conversation with Antwaun Sargent, "Lynette Yiadom-Boakye’s Fictive Figures," Interview Magazine, May 2017)
Standing on the precipice of action, the subject of Figure of Eight is caught in the moment before the doing. Utterly anonymous, yet entirely specific, we feel privy to an intimate moment of indecision or preparation. It is a tender portrayal, one that belies the drama of the composition – whereas many of Yiadom-Boakye’s paintings see the subject emerge from a dark ground, here the figure is declarative against the white. Yet, there can be no doubt that the definitive identity articulated by the artist is not a strident, aggressive one, but rather something far quieter and more approachable. The difficulty of articulating the moods engendered by these paintings is perhaps best described by the acclaimed British novelist Zadie Smith, who reflects: “Subtleties of human personality it might take thousands of words to establish are here articulated by way of a few confident brushstrokes.” (Zadie Smith, “Boakye’s Imaginary Portraits,” The New Yorker, 12 June 2017) An exceptional and elegant example from Yiadom-Boakye’s pivotal practice, Figure of Eight simultaneously invites and denies access, occupying a liminal space between the established canon and a productive unknown.
