LONDON.- Hayward Gallery Touring will present To Improvise a Mountain, a group exhibition curated by Lynette Yiadom-Boakye, one of the most important figurative painters today. For this exhibition, Yiadom-Boakye selects works that have been critical to her way of seeing and thinking, inviting audiences around the UK on a deeply personal journey across different geographies and generations of artists.


Uncover the Enigmatic Figures of Lynette Yiadom-Boakye: Click here to explore books that delve into the captivating world of her paintings, where imagined subjects and timeless narratives converge.


First coming to prominence in the early 2010s, Yiadom-Boakye is both an artist and a writer who is renowned for her oil paintings of imagined subjects. Assertive presences who yet seem to exist outside of any definable time or place, her figures are hailed for both their technical mastery and lingering, enigmatic quality.

Developed by the artist in collaboration with Hayward Gallery Touring, To Improvise a Mountain will bring Yiadom-Boakye’s work into conversation with an eclectic range of historical and contemporary artists, illuminating her creative process. Featured artists will include: Bas Jan Ader, Lisa Brice, Barbara Chase-Riboud, Samuel Fosso, Peter Hujar, Kahlil Joseph, Toyin Ojih Odutola, The Otolith Group, Jennifer Packer, Paul Mpagi Sepuya, Walter Sickert and David Wojnarowicz.

The exhibition's curatorial spirit stems from a fragment of poetry within Miles Davis’s ‘Inamorata’ (1971), which asks: ‘Who is this music that which description may never justify? / Can the ocean be described?’. For Yiadom-Boakye, poetry’s ability to translate the intangible into images the mind can hold, and to think through rhythm and feeling, is similar to the act of painting.

Yiadom-Boakye expands: “My deployment of words in writing is not always so different to my use of brush marks in painting. The logic, patterns, relationships, repetitions and decisions are guided by intuition — the rightness and wrongness, the blatancies and subtleties — and that’s how I want to approach this show.”

To Improvise a Mountain will offer a deeply personal interweaving of artworks that create their own emotional landscapes of intensity, intimacy, refusal, activism, and wonder. Ranging from the visceral Post-Impressionism of painter Walter Sickert to the video essays of Otolith Group, for Yiadom-Boakye “the governing principle, the dialogue between the works in the show, is that spirit of infinite knowledge and infinite knowing that poetry allows us.”

Brian Cass, Senior Curator of Hayward Gallery Touring, says: “Lynette Yiadom-Boakye brings us on an imaginative journey of encounters with artworks that - like her remarkable paintings - conjure different moods, personalities, colour and emotions. Her curation celebrates the imaginative spirit of the contributing artists, and the endless potential of art to bring new thinking and feeling into existence, continuing Hayward Gallery Touring’s longstanding history of partnering with artists on ambitious exhibitions that invite audiences inside their worlds.”

Jane Bhoyroo, Principal Keeper of Leeds Art Gallery, says: “Leeds Art Gallery is delighted to be collaborating with Hayward Gallery Touring and the remarkable artist Lynette Yiadom-Boakye to premiere this visionary exhibition in Leeds. It promises to be a wonderful opportunity to present artworks by internationally renowned artists from across the globe, from the late 19th century to the present day, including celebrated paintings and drawings by Walter Sickert from the Leeds Museums and Galleries collection”.

To Improvise a Mountain: Curated by Lynette Yiadom-Boakye is a Hayward Gallery Touring exhibition curated by Lynette Yiadom-Boakye with Hayward Gallery Touring. The exhibition is developed in partnership with Leeds Art Gallery, MK Gallery, and Nottingham Castle, supporting the Southbank Centre’s ongoing mission to create experiences for the nation’s enjoyment.


Artdaily participates in the Amazon Associates Program, an affiliate advertising program designed to provide a means for us to earn commissions by linking to Amazon.com and affiliated sites. When you purchase through our links, we may earn a small commission at no additional cost to you. These commissions help us continue curating and sharing the art world’s latest news, stories, and resources with our readers.