NARRATOR:

Artist Lynette Yiadom-Boakye.

LYNETTE YIADOM-BOAKYE:

I always liked art. I always made things, but I also — it never crossed my mind to make a career out of it, to be honest. I don’t know what I had in mind for a career – I thought maybe I might become an optician. Or I might write books.

NARRATOR (over the top of the interview):

She actually does write. She’s an artist who works in both mediums – painting and fiction.

YIADOM-BOAKYE:

It all sort of feeds in in its own way. When I write, it’s normally something I can’t paint and I paint what I can’t write, so most of the paintings are sort of, the narrative isn’t that clear.

NARRATOR:

The man in this painting seems so real, but he’s an invention, just like a character in a book. All of the people in her works are like that. They’re entirely made up.

YIADOM-BOAKYE:

They don’t somehow make sense as portraits, for me its painting. I suppose it’s the difference between working from a person that you’re trying to capture than actually trying to invent one, trying to, you know, create one.