L'Ortolan

Lynette Yiadom-Boakye’s subjects are bold, often confronting the viewer with a direct gaze. Speaking of her subjects the artist says: "Although they are not real I think of them as people known to me. They are imbued with a power of their own; they have a resonance - something emphatic and other-worldly. I admire them for their strength, their moral fibre. If they are pathetic, they don't survive; if I feel sorry for someone, I get rid of them. I don't like to paint victims". In a departure from previous bodies of work, the figures are sometimes shown in a landscape, exploring or scanning the horizon. The paintings evoke a narrative that is for the viewer to reconstruct.