The particular gaze of Lynette Yiadom-Boakye has landed at the Guggenheim Bilbao through the exhibition No sunset so intense, a selection of 70 works produced in the last three years and never exhibited until now. These are paintings that reflect everyday situations and “fictional characters against theatrical backgrounds”, closely related to the background of this London artist of Ghanaian origin: all the protagonists of her works are black and the genre acquires a “fluid dimension”.
The exhibition occupies three rooms on the second floor of the museum, where it coincides with the recently opened monographic exhibition on Oskar Kokoschka. Yiadom-Boakye dedicated a good part of the presentation of the exhibition to explaining the careful arrangement of his works in the rooms designed by Frank Gehry, which due to his peculiarities have caused them some headaches. “Thank you Mr. Gehry,” he said wryly.
Lynette Yiadom-Boakye’s works reflect a singular universe in which everything stems from a particular creative process. The look of the British artist is nourished by “photos, drawings, press clippings, the trips she makes or the works of other artists that she visits.” She doesn’t work with models. “From all this information and these details these works and characters come out,” explained Lekha Hileman Waitoller, curator of the exhibition, yesterday.
He also drinks from the music of Miles Davis, Prince or other artists that are part of a playlist that can be enjoyed in the museum and that accompany him in the creative process. In the literary sphere, he was inspired by James Baldwin, Okwui Enwezor and Toni Morrison, while in the cinematographic sphere he mentioned Almodovar, Charles Burnett, John Cassavetes or Pasolini. And of course, his work is linked to his personal environment. “Representing only black subjects makes political sense, but for me it comes naturally. I am what I am, and the work is a synthesis of my life,” he explained.
From there, the paintings invite the viewer to stop and observe in detail, to enter the universe of Yiadom-Boakye. An atmosphere in which the characters do not appear linked to recognizable spaces, not even to specific periods. They are timeless protagonists in everyday moments of “happiness, camaraderie or loneliness”. They do not exist beyond the mind of the artist, although the exhibition achieves that these fictional characters are also projected in the minds of the visitors.
“Animals such as birds, foxes, owls and dogs, which frequently appear in his work in a vague allusion to their status as pets -even when some are actually wild animals-, contribute to provoke a sensation of intrigue”, they explained from the Guuggenheim.
Another element to take into account in the exhibition and, in general, in the work of Yadom Boakye has to do with gender. In many works it is not clear whether the protagonists are men or women. “There is great fluidity,” said the commissioner. “For me it is not important if they are men or women, there are men dressed in women’s clothes and women who look like men,” added the artist.
Yiadom-Boakye also attaches special importance to the titles of the paintings, which “many times are not an explanation or a description of the works, but rather a complementary element.” This point also has to do with the author’s parallel practice of writing. “I write about what I can’t paint and I paint what I can’t write about,” she said.
As for his artistic technique, the exhibition shows his ability to adapt to different supports, with exceptional oil paintings on canvas or linen. His charcoal drawings also stand out, “which produce a sensation of immediacy due to their intimate scale and air of improvisation”.
The sample has the addition that the works were made during the pandemic, in many cases during the successive confinements. A period in which she found great creative freedom and was particularly active.
No other such intense sunset can be visited until September 10 on the second floor of the museum.
