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Any Number of Preoccupations
2010
The figure seems to have a life before and after the painting. The mystery is why we feel we should know it.
Artist field note
Lynette Yiadom-Boakye
She paints people who never existed - and gives them lives we can almost remember.
The five in one idea
Her fictional portraits expand who can inhabit the history of painting without requiring biography, symbolism or explanation.