Lynette Yiadom-Boakye (born 1977)
Lynette Yiadom-Boakye (born 1977 in London) is an artist of Ghanaian decent representing the young generation of British painters. In her works, she refers to the issue of racial identity, carnality, authority and sexuality. Her portraits present mysterious figures in disturbing and dark scenery, detached from any specific space-time and stereotypical cultural references. Drawing from the diverse traditions of European painting, Yiadom-Boakye breaks away from clichés typical of the discourse of post-colonial representations, focusing instead on the psychological study of her heroes
and heroines. On the one hand, the artist effectively escapes schemes of political correctness and, on the other, she performs a specific act of normalisation in painting, making her characters black, regardless of their racial background.
