Bio  Born in Los Angeles, CA, 1977  Currently resides in New York City, and Beijing, China  Received a Bachelor of Fine Arts from San Francisco Art Institute in 1999  Received a Masters in Fine Arts from Yale University School of Art

Influences  His mother  Kept him busy and out of the hood  Elements of 80’s hip-hop culture  Violence, anti-social behavior, streets on fire  Education  Influenced by realism  As an undergrad really honed his technical skills  In grad school he focused on arguments surrounding identity, gender and sexuality, painting as a political act, and questions of post- modernity (Wiley, 2013)

Influences continuedInfluences continued  Classical European paintings of noblemen, royalty and aristocrats.  Trained by copying masterworks

Work  Kehinde Wiley is a portrait painter.  Juxtaposes urban black and brown men with a traditional style of portraiture.  Wiley’s figurative paintings “quote historical sources and position young black men within the field of power.” (Wiley, 2013)  “Hijacking – or appropriating, to use the art world-approved term – the format of old master altarpieces and three-quarter-length portraits, he likened the notorious opulence of successful hip-hop artists to that of European artistocrats.” (Schwendener, 2012)

Style  Unique style  Backgrounds are usually made up.  Inspired by the culture of the person he is painting  Backgrounds rob painting of sense of location.  Backgrounds generally comprised of decorative objects, or textiles.

Media  Oil paint on canvas  Generally large scale compositions  Decorative hand carved wooden frames.  Use emblems borrowed from culture to represent identity of figure

“Down” Series“Down” Series  Series of paintings  Classical nude poses  Black male figures  Decorative backgrounds

“The World Stage”“The World Stage”  This series features youth in Nigeria, Senegal, Brazil, China, India, and Sri Lanka.  Chose locations based on taking notice on where the world is at that specific moment.  Culture and identity are the focus of his work in this series.  Found recurring theme of black culture in each society he travelled to. ure=player_embedded&v=Nq8Yr- Se7mc#!

Portrait JuxtapositionPortrait Juxtaposition  Students create self portrait  Juxtapose modern society with classical pose.  Background should represent the identity of student.  Influenced by culture student chooses.