Kehinde Wiley is one of the most commercially successful modern American artists with a unique, unusual, and impressive manner of drawing. In particular, Wiley became the first black artist to depict a portrait of President Barack Obama. Significantly, his works have become famous since they represent predominantly African Americans dressed in the latest fashion. As a rule, young people are shown against backgrounds of bright patterns based on the spirit and atmosphere of the past centuries’ masters. Kehinde is often inspired by or borrows backgrounds from drawings of ornaments of the 19th century or Dutch prints, abstract symbols of the imperial heritage. The drawings’ style mixes the canons of European painting and modern models in art. The creations are diverse and impressive, ranging from rococo to street art.
The African-American Kehinde Wiley is distraught because of the lack of black figures in world painting. With his creativity, the master strives to restore justice, depicting them from the streets of Harlem, Dakar, Kingston, and Tel Aviv, crossing the past but unambiguously symbolizing the present day. These images are symbolic and metaphorical by their nature, as they raise social and community questions about power, racial identity, and privileges. Undoubtedly, one should consider that Kehinde’s work also intersects with recent high-profile events and cases of police brutality against black people. Hence, Wiley’s works are primarily related to racial discrimination, showing how much more modern society must overcome to reconsider attitudes toward national and racial aspects.
Born in Los Angeles in 1977, Kehinde Wiley was interested in high art as a schoolchild. The tastes and creative perception were laid in this painter when he stayed in his mother’s small furniture store. There was a reasonably vast abundance and splendor of various patterns under the stylization of William Morris on the seat upholstery, which strongly sunk into the soul of the impressionable boy.
Later, Wiley used these patterns in his paintings; Morris’s designs inspired even the background of leaves in the portrait of Barack Obama. Today, personal exhibitions of the artist occur often enough in the USA, Europe, and China, and his works are leaving the white elite’s hands in private galleries and museums. Public collections are mainly in museums in American cities, but one can get acquainted with a lot of his works on the Internet.