Lynette Yiadom-Boakye’s oil paintings are at once graceful and telling. They take on characteristics of historical European portraiture in the gestures and posture of dancers, seated and reclining figures, and café settings. These figures seem to have been rendered from live models, however they’re conjured directly from the artist’s imagination. An analogy appears between the all black fictitious figures in her contemporary portraits and the omission of black representation in the art historical context in which her style comes from.