Kehinde Wiley

Born in 1977 in Los Angeles, Kehinde Wiley is an American painter based in New York. He studied at the San Francisco Art Institute and then at Yale. Born to an African-American mother and a Nigerian father whom he would only meet as an adult, the artist gives nonwhite people a central place in his work. Famous for his 2018 portrait of Barack Obama, he represents marginalized communities and seeks to do them justice.

His work focuses on racial and power issues. He mixes classic art history with urban culture. Indeed, aware of the role of art in the perception of power, materialized in particular by the representation of slavery and by the "absence of black bodies in paintings", he represents young black people from Brooklyn and Harlem in in empowering poses, in an attempt to restore the image of the black man in art. His goal is to give black bodies a heroic dimensions by breaking codes, honouring in this way the African-American youth. His paintings, bordering kitsch, are generally portraits made against an intricate backdrop. The figures he represents wear symbols of hip-hop culture, such as hoodies, caps, sweat pants. His compositions reflect the pride of marginalized communities. 

Wiley began by painting portraits of strangers he met in New York, then traveled the world in search of models and then started painting on commission, making portraits of pop icons. He then extended his practice, that focused initially on male portraits, to include women and other minority communities such as transgender people.

In his portrait of Obama, he depicts the former President of the United States seated in front of a floral wall, and thus tries to paint the history of a political icon through flowers: the chrysanthemum is the official flower of the city of Chicago and the vegetal wall reminds of Kenyan landscapes and of Hawaii... Kehinde Wiley says that he wanted to give in this composition the feeling of impermanence, of fleeting beauty and inevitable decay, of power's ephemeral nature. Wiley feels that by painting Obama's portrait, he also painted his own, in a way... Indeed, he shares the same story as Obama, as he also didn't know his father and it was only later that the artist met him. 

Africa became a major source of inspiration for the Wiley, who opened a studio and an artists' residency in Senegal in 2019. The artist is convinced of the importance of Africa's contribution to the perspectives and inspiration of artists from all over the world, and it is with this in mind that he plans to opem a second residency in Nigeria.

In 2010, he worked in partnership with Puma for the World Cup in South Africa and created a graphic clothing campaign. In 2018, his portrait of Barack Obama was exhibited at the National Portrait Gallery in Washington. In 2019, his exhibition "Tahiti" at the Templon Gallery was a tribute to transgender people of Tahitian. Kehinde Wiley's work has been on show in many institutions, from the Brooklyn Museum, to the Santa Barbara Art Museum and the Palais des Beaux Arts in Brussels.