Lot Essay
A lush, vibrant vision two metres in height, Love me nots (2021) is a hypnotic example of Michaela Yearwood-Dan’s immersive and intimate abstract practice. Against a coral-pink ground, the artist employs an array of techniques to conjure a scape of ecstatic colour and form. Marbled, floral swirls of pink impasto condense and rain tracks down the canvas, tangling with licks of gold, crimson, lilac and sky blue. Her mark-making also runs to more graphic dots and dashes, with petals of white dabbed over swathes of deep indigo. Vivid green leaves, their veins etched in delicate sgraffito, circle the centre as if caught by a gust of wind; wisps of charcoal hue, applied using the light touch of a broad, flat brush, dance among them like smoke. With its title gesturing to the romantic language of flowers, the work bursts with growth, abundance and change, inviting the viewer into a lyrical emotive space. Amid the bloom and blush of paint, the artist has penned wistful lines of text: I’m still waiting and wondering where your heart is; This could all be so easy; and, in cursive embroidery at the right-hand edge, Will you still love me tomorrow?
Yearwood-Dan, who was born in South London in 1994, draws on personal experience to create her paintings, conceiving of the canvas as a zone for individualism, subjectivity and self-actualisation. Her rich, dynamic abstract language allows her to explore her identity without reducing it to a set of fixed signifiers. The paintings’ tropical foliage, bold colours and decorative flourishes incorporate references to her Caribbean heritage; their snippets of script—drawn from text conversations with friends, song lyrics and her own writing—are diaristic and heartfelt, often touching on the pains and pleasures of love. The present work lifts lines from Amy Winehouse and Lauryn Hill, taking aim at power and patriarchy: the flipside of ‘This could all be so easy’ is ‘But you’d rather make it hard’.
Large and deliberately feminine, Yearwood-Dan’s works physically command their gallery settings, reflecting her own intent to take up space as a queer, Black woman. Love me nots, as with many of her paintings, is composed around a luminous central void in a way that echoes the illusionistic sky-ceilings of the Italian Renaissance. Laying bare the artist’s vulnerability, it also welcomes the viewer in a circumambient embrace. This sense of catharsis and sanctuary came to the fore in Yearwood-Dan’s acclaimed installation Let Me Hold You (June-September 2022) at the London culture hub Queercircle, where a curved mural environment, with the addition of ceramic elements and potted plants, created a dedicated safe space for LGBTQ+ communities to gather.
Love me nots’ embroidered script exemplifies the artist’s ‘accessorising’ of her paintings, which have also integrated media such as acrylic nails, gold leaf and glittering Swarovski crystals. Evocative of going-out rituals, self-care and glamour, these embellishments heighten the works’ sense of touch: Yearwood-Dan’s ceramic practice, which she began to explore during lockdown, complements the tactile, haptic quality of her paintings. They also invite comparison with the ornate, bejewelled canvases of Chris Ofili, whose work had a formative impact on the artist as a teenager. Yearwood-Dan’s work, however, is about more than its surface: she understands painting as an experiential art-form, demanding its audience’s time, intention and presence. Love me nots reveals its intricacies with slow, extended observation, as its ribbons of colour blossom and unfurl, and its fragments of poetry drift elusively through space. Luxuriant with life and love, the painting celebrates the joy of getting to know oneself through all the richness, subtlety and constant motion of experience.
Yearwood-Dan, who was born in South London in 1994, draws on personal experience to create her paintings, conceiving of the canvas as a zone for individualism, subjectivity and self-actualisation. Her rich, dynamic abstract language allows her to explore her identity without reducing it to a set of fixed signifiers. The paintings’ tropical foliage, bold colours and decorative flourishes incorporate references to her Caribbean heritage; their snippets of script—drawn from text conversations with friends, song lyrics and her own writing—are diaristic and heartfelt, often touching on the pains and pleasures of love. The present work lifts lines from Amy Winehouse and Lauryn Hill, taking aim at power and patriarchy: the flipside of ‘This could all be so easy’ is ‘But you’d rather make it hard’.
Large and deliberately feminine, Yearwood-Dan’s works physically command their gallery settings, reflecting her own intent to take up space as a queer, Black woman. Love me nots, as with many of her paintings, is composed around a luminous central void in a way that echoes the illusionistic sky-ceilings of the Italian Renaissance. Laying bare the artist’s vulnerability, it also welcomes the viewer in a circumambient embrace. This sense of catharsis and sanctuary came to the fore in Yearwood-Dan’s acclaimed installation Let Me Hold You (June-September 2022) at the London culture hub Queercircle, where a curved mural environment, with the addition of ceramic elements and potted plants, created a dedicated safe space for LGBTQ+ communities to gather.
Love me nots’ embroidered script exemplifies the artist’s ‘accessorising’ of her paintings, which have also integrated media such as acrylic nails, gold leaf and glittering Swarovski crystals. Evocative of going-out rituals, self-care and glamour, these embellishments heighten the works’ sense of touch: Yearwood-Dan’s ceramic practice, which she began to explore during lockdown, complements the tactile, haptic quality of her paintings. They also invite comparison with the ornate, bejewelled canvases of Chris Ofili, whose work had a formative impact on the artist as a teenager. Yearwood-Dan’s work, however, is about more than its surface: she understands painting as an experiential art-form, demanding its audience’s time, intention and presence. Love me nots reveals its intricacies with slow, extended observation, as its ribbons of colour blossom and unfurl, and its fragments of poetry drift elusively through space. Luxuriant with life and love, the painting celebrates the joy of getting to know oneself through all the richness, subtlety and constant motion of experience.