Medicine at Playtime, 2017
- Medium
- Oil on linen
- Dimensions
- 78 3/4 × 47 1/4 in. (200.03 × 120.02 cm)
- Accession Number
- 2017.49
- Credit
The Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles
Purchase with funds provided by the Acquisition and Collection Committee
Medicine at Playtime depicts a man in a moment of contemplation or reverie. Yiadom-Boakye’s painting is a fictional portrait, that is, a study of a nonexistent person painted from the artist's imagination rather than from a model or photograph. The stark surroundings and the subject's nondescript clothing provide little information about the young man, his time, or his place. The quizzical, lyrical title likewise does nothing to furnish a context for the figure. The painting thereby prompts viewers to reflect upon their own assumptions as to who the man is, what he may be thinking, or whom he may be looking at. While a markedly enigmatic and oblique painting, one type of reality principle does regulate Yiadom-Boakye’s portrait: the person she conjures is Black, whereas historically, in the Western art tradition, people of color have been excluded from the genre of portraiture.