Lynette Yiadom-Boakye, one of the most important figurative painters today, selects an exhibition of works critical to her way of seeing and thinking, inviting audiences on a personal journey through art past and present.

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, David Wojnarowicz and more.

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.

To Improvise A Mountain: Lynette Yiadom-Boakye Curates is a Hayward Gallery Touring exhibition 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.