9. Lynette Yiadom-Boakye
Lynette Yiadom-Boakye’s oil paintings focus on fictional figures that exist outside of specific times and places. Her compositions are “suggestions of people…They don’t share our concerns or anxieties. They are somewhere else altogether.” This lack of fixed narrative leaves her work open to the projected imagination of the viewer. Yiadom-Boakye’s intriguing work appear traditional but are in fact much more innovative. Her portraits of imaginary people use invented pre-histories and raise pertinent questions about how we read pictures in general, particularly with regard to black subjects. She was nominated for the Turner Prize in 2013.