Words by: Alyssa Mercante
What you need to
know about the artist
who's painting President Obama’s official portrait.
Yesterday, President Obama revealed that he’d chosen the 40-year old artist to paint his official portrait. (Mrs. Obama selected Baltimore artist Amy Sherald.) Wiley, who was born and raised in South Central LA, has works in the National Portrait Gallery and the Brooklyn Museum. Here’s what else you need to know.
Who’s Kehinde Wiley?
Wiley is the fifth of sixth children and has a twin brother five minutes his senior. He attended Yale Graduate School of Art. His mother, while raising six children alone, received a master’s degree in African linguistics from USC, and later ran a junk shop in Los Angeles.
Kehinde means “second born twin” in Yoruba.
He’s known for his historical mash-ups.
Wiley’s best known for placing common, contemporary subjects in regular street clothes in the lavish settings once reserved for nobility and military leaders of the 18th and 19th Century. As the catalog from his 2015 Brooklyn Museum retrospective, explained: Wiley “transforms historical portraits—originally intended to convey the status and power of the sitter—into monumental contemporary paintings that place black subjects front and center. He thereby draws attention to the absence of black men and women from traditional Western art history.”
In 2005, VH1 hired Wiley to paint portraits of the honorees for that year’s Hip Hop Honors program. He created a series of paintings of rap royalty— Grandmaster Flash, Big Daddy Kane, Ice-T, LL Cool J, et al.
VH1 commissioned him over a decade ago.
So did Michael Jackson.
In 2008, MJ called to commission Wiley to paint his portrait. Though it wasn’t completed until after the pop star’s death in 2009, the two collaborated on the historical references that would inform the work. The resulting 10-foot tall portrait depicting Jackson seated on a war horse festooned with ribbons was sold to a German collector in late 2009 for just $175,000.
He's a scavenger.
Wiley scouts subjects from urban environments around the world—L.A., Harlem, Mumbai, Senegal, Dakar and Rio de Janeiro. He described the casting process to the New York Times, as “this serendipitous thing where I am in the streets running into people who resonate with me, whether for cultural or sexual reasons. My type is rooted in my own sexual desire." He pauses. "Most people turn me down."
He’s a fabric hound.
Wherever he travels, the now New York-based Wiley keeps a close eye out for new fabrics and textiles. He then uses their patterns to create backdrops for his paintings, or has suits made for his personal use (he has hundreds), and even used them in a short-lived clothing line concept which paired Nigerian textiles with hooded parkas.
There is a long tradition of artists hiring teams of assistants to execute their vision. Renaissance artists used them, so does pop sensation Jeff Koons. Wiley sometimes employs as many as ten assistants in his studio in Beijing, though we’re guessing his Presidential portrait will be made in America.
He doesn’t paint
everything himself.
