POWER PAINTER
Obama portraitist Wiley has two works in Boca
Here’s what one reviewer had to say about artist Kehinde Wiley:
“What I was always struck by whenever I saw his portraits was the degree to which they challenged our conventional views of power and privilege.”
And this is no ordinary art critic: It’s former President Barack Obama.
The New York-based Wiley, considered one of the most in-demand artists in the country, gained more recognition this year when his official portrait of Obama — the ex-prez sitting on a wooden chair in a field of glorious greenery — was unveiled for the Smithsonian’s National Portrait Gallery.
But you don’t have to travel to D.C. to see his creations. Two of Wiley’s vibrant, large-scale works now grace the walls of the Boca Raton Museum of Art.
One piece — a tapestry called “The Gypsy Fortune Teller” — is part of an exhibit up through October. And earlier this year, the museum purchased a Wiley work — the oil painting “Annoyed Radha With Her Friends” — that is prominently displayed on the museum’s second floor.
“We were excited when the opportunity became available,” said museum assistant curator Lanya Snyder.
The museum isn’t piggybacking on all the media interest in Wiley. His work had been on its radar for years. Previously, the museum had the long-term loan of another Wiley work, a striking portrait of the rapper Big Daddy Kane that the artist created for VH1’s “Hip Hop Honors” award show.
“We were aware of his work before the Obama connection,” Snyder noted.
Both of the Wiley artworks now in Boca are strong examples of his trademark style. As the museum’s informational cards note, he takes the tropes of previous art eras — such as glorified portraits once reserved for rich white patrons and their families — and instead paints African-Americans and other minorities in that old master fashion, casting light on issues of underrepresentation and identity.
And his bold palette and elaborate framing help them stand out in a crowd.
“He’s known for a vivid use of color in his subjects … and making them seem larger-than-life,” Snyder said. “He creates sort of iconic figures.”
The “Gypsy Fortune Teller” tapestry is part of a fascinating exhibit called “Nomadic Murals: Contemporary Tapestries and Carpets,” up through Oct. 21. The 35 pieces cover a broad range of styles, from commentary on sociological and politi-
cal issues to abstract and conceptual imagery.
Wiley’s 2007 work shows a group of African-American men — dressed in modern T-shirts, jeans and athletic gear — relaxing in the bucolic countryside in poses usually associated with nature paintings of the landed gentry enjoying picnics and outdoor excursions. The fact that it’s all woven together, with beautiful symbols of birds and flowers bordering it like a classic frame, only makes the precision of the piece more striking.
The museum’s Wiley purchase is a 2010 oil on canvas that transposes issues he explored in African-American subjects and looks at them through a more global lens, this time a series of work on Sri Lanka. But it’s also a flatout gorgeous use of color and composition.
Born in 1977 in Los Angeles, Wiley’s profile has been steadily rising, with his art on display in many American museums. His work is owned by major local collectors, as well. He was named to Time’s 100 list of prominent people. One of his paintings was featured on the TV series “Empire.” At the recent Metropolitan Museum Gala, Amal Clooney’s bright, floral dress was described by one fashionista as resembling a Wiley painting.
But it was the Obama portrait that made him a household name earlier this year — the first African-American artist to paint the official portrait of the first African-American president. Predictably, it also sparked a brief, politically oriented controversy.
Wiley told reporters that painting Obama was an honor and “a huge responsibility,” although Obama joked when the picture debuted that he “tried to negotiate less gray hair, smaller ears.”
What about that big background of greenery? Look closely, Wiley said, and you’ll see that it includes flowers from Hawaii, Kenya and Chicago to honor Obama’s heritage and places he lived.
The painting was praised as a new vision of masculinity by one online observer, but derided by others as not following the serious pattern of previous presidential portraits. (Though that overlooks another National Gallery piece: Elaine De Kooning’s abstract expressionist portrait of John F. Kennedy, which she began painting at his winter White House in Palm Beach in 1962 and suffused with slashes of tropical color).
Conservative websites also lambasted Wiley’s previous pictures that showed black women clutching the cut-off heads of white women and Wiley’s comment that “It’s sort of a play on the ‘kill whitey’ thing.”
Art writer Seph Rodney said that negative reactions to the “beheading” paintings prove that most people are ignorant of art history. In a piece on NBC News’ website, he noted that the pictures are clear homages referencing classical paintings by Caravaggio and Gentileschi.
“This painter plays with his audience,” Rodney wrote.
Wiley has said that he wants to democratize who gets to be the subject matter in art. As he told CNN, “What I choose to do is to take people who happen to look like me — black and brown people all over the world, increasingly — and to allow them to occupy that field of power.”
Perhaps the last word should rest with Obama. He told reporters he was moved by how Wiley elevated ordinary black men and women in his paintings.
In an Instagram post, Obama said his portrait — plus Amy Sherald’s painting of Michelle Obama — will help people “see this country through a new lens … a better sense of the America we all love. Cleareyed. Big-hearted. Inclusive and optimistic. And I hope they’ll (be) more empowered to go and change their worlds.”