26 November 2022
Maggi had read an article in The Times extolling the brilliance of an exhibition featuring the portraits of Lynette Yiadom-Boakye called “Fly in League with the Night” at Tate Britain. She wanted to go into town anyway and she convinced me to accompany her to the show.
I hadn’t read the piece myself, so I was following my wife’s wishes which meant I had no preconceived ideas about the pictures or the artist. On entry I was impressed by the power of the imagery. See the examples of pictures I enjoyed.
It surprised me that no pictures had descriptions associated with them. They all had titles but no blurb to accompany them. The free booklet says
The individual paintings do not have explanatory labels. Instead, you are invited to engage with Yiadom-Boakye’s works on their own terms. ‘There are so many things that I do or think about when painting that I can’t put into words. Any attempt at explanation can become, at best, superfluous. At worst, wholly inaccurate.
Diadem-Boakye is both a painter and a writer of prose and poetry. For her, the two forms of creativity are separate but intertwined. ‘I write about things I can’t paint and paint things I can’t write about,’ she has said. She refers to her paintings’ evocative titles as ‘an extra brush -mark’. They are integral to each work but are an explanation or description.
The strong colours were evident throughout the show. The figures were always central to the images with little or nothing happening in the background apart from the colours that drifted from one shade to another. There was a strong undertone of homosexual imagery in many of the paintings. All very powerful stuff and both Maggi and I enjoyed the show.
27 November 202
Richard and Aida came over for lunch. Maggi cooked a very nice mushroom and fennel soup to start, that had real depth of flavour. For the main course Maggi had four pieces of pork loin that she bashed and breadcrumbed. This was accompanied by potatoes in a pea and sweetcorn creamy sauce. We finished off with cheese and biscuits. I didn’t want to eat any more for the rest of the day. I enjoyed the food but I was stuffed.
We watched the world cup until they left just after 7 pm.