The Regal and the Gentle Work of Kehinde Wiley
How Kehinde Wiley's transformative figures change our perspective
My intent in approaching this powerhouse of an artist was to talk about one particular painting. I started my research, watching video interviews of Kehinde and marveling at his joyful demeanor as he spoke of his work, and it quickly dawned on me that there was no way to talk about Kehinde Wiley and only speak of one piece. I can’t even really limit it to paintings, but I have no choice now.
Where do I begin with the genius that is Kehinde Wiley? Many have spoken of him, and you can read plenty about him. Rightly so, Kehinde Wiley is arguably the greatest living American artist. You can’t convince me otherwise. He even painted the official presidential portrait of Barack Obama, cementing his immortality in the art world. He’s the first black artist to be selected to paint the presidential portrait.
The problem I have is there is just so much to say. And he’s only in his 40s. I could talk about the work he did to highlight individuals outside of the gender binary in Tahiti. I must talk about how his work takes inspiration from the traditions of Western art. I must speak on how he pulls models from the street. How could I not talk about his recent pieces depicting Afro-Cubans? Afro-Cubans.
I’m delighted to admit that I will just have to talk about Kehinde again and again. The thing is, I’m not sure I will ever live in a world where his art won’t strike my heart and leave me gasping for air.
I’m going to focus on three pieces by Kehinde today. First, a piece that is singular in understanding his oeuvre. Second, a piece from his breathtaking series An Archaeology of Silence. And finally, I’m going to talk about his pieces depicting Havana because dammit I have to.
Rather than going into his biography, which you can find all over, I’m going to go straight into his art. Kehinde does something so difficult to master but makes it look easy. To recreate familiar imagery and make it new isn’t easy. What I mean is, it’s not always going to go over well with your audience. My household has been filled with family members bemoaning the woes of Netflix’s live-action adaptation of Avatar: The Last Airbender (for the record I’m among those bemoaning it. But I love the cast). We hate repetitive and unoriginal imagery so much we have a word for it: cliche.
Tropes and cliches often feel overdone, adding to our ire. On top of that, in the age of TikTok, things that are new become old at an accelerated rate. This affects nearly every industry, including creative industries. We used to live in a world with four fashion seasons, now we live in a world of 52 fashion seasons. Yet, Kehinde’s work is able to break this chain.
This painting is Napoleon Crossing the Alps by the French artist Jacques-Louis David (hint hint for Monday’s post: don’t forget that name!). It’s an incredibly famous painting of France’s most famous short king. I could write a whole damn book about this painting, especially when we compare it to this reimagining by Kehinde Wiley.
It’s okay to admit that this just punched you in the gut. It’s one of his most beloved pieces for a reason. How can you not feel the sheer power of this painting? What makes this such a wonderful piece is how it perfectly encapsulates everything Kehinde Wiley’s work is saying to us.
He’s taken an image of a well-known white man in history and replaced him with a black man he likely found off the street in modern clothing. The background we’re used to seeing is replaced with incredible ornate imagery. I actually haven’t found any reasoning behind the background, and I don’t care one bit. It’s gorgeous and stands as a staple of Kehinde’s work.
Kehinde is taking inspiration from Western European Art and simply asking, “Who is worthy of being painted in a portrait?” His intent is to honor the Western European Art tradition with reverence and respect while also highlighting people who are often ignored by society or left out of the narrative. As a result, his work manages to be both joyful and celebratory, but at times reveals a deeper sadness.
“I’m telling a story about a group of people who, for centuries, have been ignored and forgotten. And I’m using the language of the epic, the heroic, even the elegiac, the sort of sadness that surrounds a lot of these big monuments, to be able to make someone feel special again, to make someone feel fully formed, mourned after.” - Kehinde Wiley
When we see his interpretation of the famous Napoleon painting, we’re forced to see our biases on display. Instantly, we’re struck by the difference between the two paintings. Aspects of ourselves that have been taught to us by our society and are unabashedly ugly are pushed to the forefront, yet we’re also caught in captivated awe of his work. On a technical level, his work is stunning. It’s realist, detailed, and gentle. To portray black men as powerful, gentle, and regal is revolutionary, and it's this fact that gives the viewer a sour taste in their mouth. We cannot help but ask, “Why is this revolutionary now? Why is this not just the standard?”
One of the things I love most about Kehinde Wiley’s work is the nods to Hip Hop culture. I’m not going to go deep there because quite frankly I know nothing about Hip Hop. Were this jazz, we’d be having a very long conversation. What I mean is that Kehinde does not censure the individual image of his models. He’s taking them as they are and saying, “This is of value. This is regal.”
He challenges what our representation of black men is. His desire to be seen is poignant. This is something I find hard to express to some of my white friends. As a First Generation Immigrant daughter of Latin American parents (what a mouthful), I don’t know how to explain the emptiness of not seeing yourself. There’s often a misunderstanding that my lighter skin tone means I see myself in whiteness, but all I see are the gaps between the people I’ve seen on television, books, and films my whole life and myself. If you’ve never seen yourself in media, you have no way of knowing if the things about you are ‘normal.’
I was once babysitting a young girl who discovered my secret weapon for babysitting. I can draw any cartoon character. It takes me only a few minutes and keeps the kid quiet. She requested I draw Ariel from The Little Mermaid. This young girl was half Puerto Rican (like me) and half Brazilian (not like me, but close). Her mother was Afro-Latina, her father lighter like myself. She had beautiful brown skin and begged to color the drawing I did of Ariel. I relented, and she proudly showed me the image, insisting I take a photo with her posing proudly. She painted Ariel exactly like the cartoon, except her skin was brown to match her own. I realize the irony to this, but I don’t want that to take away from the real meaning of this moment.
Children want to see themselves in the media. She didn’t have anyone to look to in Disney or any media that was a brown Brazilian like herself, so she made them like her in her own way. As a child, I was no different. I was obsessed with Sailor Moon and when I realized Sailor Jupiter had curly brown hair and was tall like me, I proudly proclaimed, “She’s Latina like me!” Of course, I was met with laughs. Even now, I laugh it off, but it reveals so much about my experiences with representation as a child.
Understanding this is one key to better grasping Kehinde’s work and deeper message. Yet, we’re only scratching the surface. There’s another key component to understanding his work. You see, Kehinde’s paintings are gentle.
This painting isn’t small. I don’t just mean that metaphorically, but I mean it’s a fricken giant. This is a piece from his incredible collection An Archaeology of Silence. That title alone is a masterpiece, and then Kehinde pulls this.
An Archaeology of Silence features models mostly pulled from the streets of Senegal, where he opened an art studio and residency. Here we see a young man lying in what we presume is his death. His legs are in an off-setting position, he’s draped over rocks and his head rests on grass. The ornate background directly interacts with him, layering the image, perhaps asking us if he is nothing more than a background piece in our lives or the forefront of our minds.
He originally took inspiration from Hans Holbein’s The Body of the Dead Christ in the Tomb (seen below). Knowing the inspiration, what does that tell us about Kehinde’s piece?
Notice the careful detail Kehinde puts into this work. Often, especially for a large piece, artists will opt to focus on specific details on a subject and soften others to draw the eyes to specific parts. It’s both used for optimal visual experience but it’s also a nice way to be just a smidge lazy (I say as a very lazy artist). Yet, Kehinde doesn’t take shortcuts. It’s a giant painting, for one, but he has taken the time to show grace and detail that heightens the subject.
There is so much love in these details. He doesn’t hold back or blur anything, nor does he deny the details that make up the being. I love the veins on the hands, the Louis Vuitton logos, and the boxers peeking out. Rather than censoring any part of the model, Kehinde’s work dives in deeply. Yes, he’s wearing Nike shoes, and jeans, and his boxers are showing, and yes, he is still holy.
One cannot help but feel Kehinde’s reverence for those he paints. There’s no doubt in my mind that Kehinde’s work may be fueled by anger, but I also know there is so much love in this work. There is love for oneself, love for art, and love for his people. By painting these seemingly random people with gentleness and heavy detail, he is claiming them in an effort of incredible love. It’s infectious and breathtaking.
We find in his work a gentle message: I see your pain. There is space for your mourning. In a world where toxic masculinity tells men to hide their emotions, toughen up, and hide the darkness, Kehinde takes classic imagery of masculinity and gives it back to us with something we all need more of: sensitivity.
“I remember looking at some of those Confederate sculptures down in Virginia and being absolutely, number one, horrified, number two, enthralled, and, number three, inspired. Inspired to have my response to it, inspired to be able to hack that language of domination and terror, real, sheer terror. Deconstruct it. Shoot it out in a different form. Shoot it out in a loving form. Shoot it out in a way that says, there’s got to be more than this.” - Kehinde Wiley
If my gushing hasn’t convinced you that he’s amazing, I think it’s time to schedule an appointment with a doctor cause something’s wrong. I’m going to end with a piece that speaks to me personally. I’m not Cuba, I’m Puerto Rican. But for anyone unfamiliar with Caribbean cultures, Cubans and Puerto Ricans are practically cousins. Hell, I even have Cuban cousins.
Caribbean culture is amazing for many reasons but most of all for its diversity. Yet, that diversity (namely in the Afro sphere) is rarely given proper spotlight and even left out of the narrative. This is baffling when one remembers that our music, food, history, literature, and many of our cultural traditions began with the African slaves who were brought to the Caribbean by the European colonizers. When we think of Cuba who do we think of? Gloria Esteban? Mr. Worldwide? I love these two dearly, but are we forgetting Celia Cruz? Sammy Davis Jr? Gina Torres?
Enter Kehinde:
It doesn’t so much amaze me that he painted Cubans but at the very specific choice to only paint Afro-Cubans. To paint a people that are not only left out of the narrative but coming from a country that has had nothing but tense relations with the United States is… Look I’ll just say it: ballsy. There’s no eloquent way to put it.
My words fail me with this collection. I suppose part of it is I feel my world has crossed into Kehinde’s by painting people I affectionately call my own. We see once again regality in a people largely unknown in our society. We see once again the incredible detail as a proclamation of love. We see a country that is more a stranger to the United States than a neighbor in a powerful and colorful array. He is not here to lecture us on Cuba, he’s here to celebrate Cuba’s rich African heritage.
And how can we not celebrate with him? We’re thrown into a world of rich color. We’re face-to-face with costuming and headgear we may not understand and must now seek out. I want to sink my teeth into the richness of Cuba’s African heritage. I want to hear the music and watch the dancing and let it consume me. I want to know every detail because it’s beautiful, enriching, fascinating, and enthralling. Seeing what Kehinde is capable of, how can we expect any other reaction to his work that pure awe?
Ultimately, Kehinde Wiley’s work is about love. And when he paints with love, we find ourselves yearning for that same love to grow inside us. It’s infectious.
“Black people are survivors, we’re shapeshifters... The very delightful and delicious ways in which we survive have created the Blues, and so many other cultural traditions at the leading edge of American creative culture, whether it be Jazz or Hip Hop, soul food, or African American fashion sensibilities” - Kehinde Wiley
How can I have said so much and yet not said nearly enough? It’s incredible to think that we’ve only scratched the surface of the massive work of Kehinde Wiley. It amazes me to think there is still more to come. We have not run out of Kehinde Wiley masterpieces, and we don’t yet know what’s in store for us.
Again, I cannot possibly go into everything so if you haven’t heard of Kehinde before this piece, please read more. There’s much that has been said of him and will be said. I’m going to share some more places where you can learn about Kehinde, but I want to end my words by essentially repeating myself: Kehinde Wiley is the greatest living American artist. End of discussion.
More on Kehinde Wiley if like me you can’t get enough
PBS video on him (where I got some quotes)
This New Yorker piece on his portrait of Obama
Here’s a more in-depth look on his portrait of Obama
This piece from the Seattle Times gives some insights on recent things going on with Kehinde
Once again here’s information on the pieces he did depicting non-binary folk in Tahiti
One of my favorite videos from The New Yorker on him and fellow artist Amy Sherald
Here’s another video on Kehinde if you want to learn more about how he takes inspiration from Western European Art
Oh and here’s an Audio Tour of Archaeology of Silence.
So glad you’ve written this piece about Wiley. I didn’t realize how beautiful his work is until I saw his Obama portrait up close at the National Gallery of Art. Photos don’t come close to doing it justice. The piece is absolutely breathtaking.
As usual, I enjoy your personal anecdotes and really love the story about the little girl who painted your drawing of Ariel to match her own own skin tone.