This volume accompanies the first major survey of the work of Lynette Yiadom-Boakye, a London-born painter and author with roots in Ghana. Around eighty paintings, drawings, and prints from private and public collections in Europe and the United States are assembled here, joining new, previously unseen works. Yiadom-Boakye’s main theme is the human being; the women and men, painted with oil or charcoal and pastels, appear to be portraits, but are actually fictions. They are always people of Color—whereby the painter highlights the fact of their absence in European art history. Along with her paintings, the catalogue also features the artist’s texts and poems. Accompanying essays by Andrea Schlieker, Isabella Maidment, and American poet Elizabeth Alexander explain Yiadom-Boakye's impressive body of work over the past twenty years.

LYNETTE YIADOM-BOAKYE (*1977, London) is a British artist and author known worldwide for her expressive portraits of fictional characters. She was nominated for the Turner Prize in 2013 and her work has been seen in many international exhibitions.