Kehinde Wiley’s Female Portraits of Popular Culture: A Synthesis of Low Class Urban Imagery with High Class European and American Classic Art

Abstract

Kehinde Wiley is a prolific and successful contemporary American artist. Since the beginning of his illustrious career, Wiley’s established trademark represents dualities in his monumental photo-realistic painted portraits. He portrays urban African Americans from the diaspora in a persona reflective of European and American high class culture, Biblical figures, or Christian saints. Framed within the context of hip-hop culture, originally Wiley only portrayed young African American males. With growing critical acclaim, Wiley began to include in his repertoire of portraits images of females.

This paper will examine Wiley’s multi-layered identities in his female portraits as well as his complex preparatory work in producing the final painting. It will investigate the following selection processes used by Wiley for: the female subjects, the subjects’ attire, the figural compositions inspired by classic art history artworks, and the designs for the environments. This paper will attempt to demonstrate that Wiley’s paintings of popular culture express an extraction of global identities as well as both cultural and gender dualities.