Lynette Yiadom-Boakye review – ‘she’s turned Tate Britain on its head’

Jonathon Jones | The Guardian | 2nd December 2020

Yiadom-Boakye’s subjects are fictitious, but compelling. Mostly young, black and good looking, they show a “black society … as it exist[s] unto itself”. Her work – all oils on canvas – is loaded with the conventions of portraiture and “painterly erudition”. One reviewer is a skeptic – “these pictures smoulder, but never ignite.” The consensus, though, is elsewhere – “in so many ways, she already is [a living old master]”.