What does it mean to actually see black people and honor them with the grand art of portraiture?
That’s what artist Kehinde Wiley has been exploring for more than a decade and he’s created a lot of buzz.
Wiley paints huge and colorful portraits of African Americans that mimic the great masterpieces of 18th century Europe.
A retrospective of his work, featuring nearly 60 pieces, is currently up at the Seattle Art Museum through May 8.
Wiley is based in New York but he was in Seattle recently to talk about growing up in South Central Los Angeles, as well as the “whiteness” of museum culture and race.
He’s traveled the world — Cameroon, Haiti, Israel — to paint portraits of mostly brown and black people.
I asked him what it’s meant to spend so much time focused on capturing skin color.
“I learned by painting live models in my drawing classes,” he told me. “By and large these were white men and women. I would use the history of painting by looking at Joshua Reynolds or Ruben and going into those deep reds and pinks and greens. It was only years later when I really investigated what it looks like to paint black skin. How many colors exist in the folds of the face, how many blues and greens.
"What you’re looking at this museum exhibit is a personal history of color, a personal relationship with how to arrive at the reality that I spend everyday walking around in …that then looks like black and brown people all over the world.”
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