Black Allegiance To The Cunning

Daydreaming Of Devils

A Bounty Left Unpaid

Penny For Them

A Whistle In A Wish

Tie the Temptress To The Trojan

(and how I owe it all to Lorde)

art 101

Lynette Yiadom-Boayke at Tate

One fascinating thing being obsessed with something is that it further informs your next obsessions or at least shapes your taste in whatever art form you consume - fashion, film, books, paintings, photography, etc. Let me explain. I have this big, ginormous, ever-present, ever-lasting, intense obsession with Lorde. I absolutely love everything she stands for, what she puts out, how she writes and sees the world etc (more on this at a later date, don’t you worry).

And the fun part of being obsessed with someone is that you will basically read/watch/consume everything they recommend. If it’s good enough for them it’s good enough for you.

If Lorde recommends a book, an artist or a movie, you know I will start researching it soon enough - it’s a great way to discover new art you completely love but wouldn’t have had any clue about before and it’s basically a continuation of the initial’s obsession universe, a win-win if you ask me. So that’s what I do. I find my next read from small magazine interviews from my faves, I discover a new director from a visual reference she used or go to my next exhibition because she told me to. And I’m here to tell you all about this latter endeavour. In Lorde’s 73 questions with Vogue she was asked what her favourite artist is and her answer was painter and writer Lynette Yiadom-Boakye. Now, I’ve always been intimidated by art, too terrified of how little I knew about it to even know where to start. I made little attempts here and there to begin my big art conquest - I subscribed to the Tate newsletter, read a few articles in the New Yorker art section, really looked when I was in a museum, but nothing too major. So when I recognised the name of the artist that was having an exhibition at Tate Britain thanks to my pure obsession of Lorde, I felt compelled to buy

a ticket. So on a crisp surprisingly sunny Thursday afternoon we headed to Pimlico and went to the Lynette Yiadom-Boakye’s FLY IN LEAGUE WITH THE NIGHT exhibition. I don’t think I quite have the language to talk about paintings in rich detail, but I will say that I was hooked. Her art is such a simply beautiful thing. It’s mainly portraits of fictional characters she creates, in circumstances she invents. It’s basically

a short story in the form of a painting. Her portraits transmit so much through just a look or lack of one, movement flows through them, you can feel the energy in the room the subjects reside. The colours and textures are just beautiful and you simply get transported into

her universe. What I loved the most about her work was the pure poetry of the titles each piece had: Daydreaming of Devils, The Woman That Watches, A Whistle in a Wish, Tie the Temptress to the Trojan, A Bounty left Unpaid to name a few. Lynette Yiadom-Boakye is also a writer alongside being a painter and that really shows. She talks about the two art form co-exist in her work ‘I write about the things I can’t paint and paint the things I can’t write about’ and describes the titles as ‘an extra brush-mark’ for the painting. Ughhhh, how beautiful and brilliant is that? I felt very content and in awe after walking around the rooms of the exhibition. There’s not a lot of things that make you feel as fullfilled and wholesome as a great piece of art - whatever form that might be in - and for a while from now the paintings of Lynette Yiadom-Boakye will provide me with that feeling. I’m happy to report that Lorde still has impeccable taste and that these obsessions we sometimes have are are so precious and vital to exploring the world. So I encourage you to do the same, let yourself be obsessed and see where it takes you.