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I think there's something important in going against the grain, and perhaps finding value in things that aren't necessarily institutionally recognized.

Kehinde Wiley

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Kehinde Wiley
Age: 47
Born: 1977
Born: February 28
Painter
LA
California
Things
Finding
Think
Aren
Thinking
Value
Perhaps
Institutionally
Values
Recognized
Important
Grain
Going
Necessarily
Something
Findings

More quotes by Kehinde Wiley

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Portraiture is something that we're all drawn to. I think primarily other forms - we prefer, by and large, to look at human beings than a bowl of fruit.
Kehinde Wiley
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A realization and a dissection of the canon gave rise to the work. But there's also a sneaking suspicion of the canon.
Kehinde Wiley
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Unlike the background in many of the paintings that I was inspired by or paintings that I borrowed poses from - the great European paintings of the past - the background in my work does not play a passive role.
Kehinde Wiley
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It never really understood its own situational luxury. And I think that by and large the privilege of being Kehinde Wiley in the 21st century, making these high-priced luxury goods, traveling the world, pointing at these people, behooves me to have a point of view and to say something about it.
Kehinde Wiley
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I think that at its best, painting can be an act of juggling perceptions, a hall of mirrors. And it can be a bit confusing and scattering. But as the artist, as the man behind the velvet rope who controls the smoke and the mirrors and the way that things move in the painted space, what I want to do is to try my best to be a good witness.
Kehinde Wiley
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I believe the artist is capable of contributing to the broader evolution of culture in all of its dimensions.
Kehinde Wiley
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We're wired to be empathetic and to care about the needs of others, but also to be curious about others. And I think that's just sort of in our DNA. And so portraiture is a very human act.
Kehinde Wiley
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In my work, I want to create an understanding, not about what a painting looks like but about what a painting says.
Kehinde Wiley
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I'm fully capable of multitasking certain conceptual concerns within the work.
Kehinde Wiley
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It was something that came sort of matter-of-factually. Because there - it's like really - real honest engagement with the people around me and just like really honestly being a little bit confused, quite frankly, about Harlem.
Kehinde Wiley
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I create something that means something to me, to the world, and try to do my best. I can't fix everything.
Kehinde Wiley
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Women are expected to identify gender as a starting point. Ethnicities are expected to identify that as a location. Is it ever possible for the artist to imagine a state of absolute freedom? That was my call to arms.
Kehinde Wiley
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I love being able to have a team.
Kehinde Wiley
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It became a question of taste. I have a certain taste in art history. And that - I had a huge library of art history books in my studio. And I would simply have the models go through those books with me, and we began a conversation about, like, what painting means, why we do it, why people care about it why or how it can mean or make sense today.
Kehinde Wiley
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I have a lot of problems with Western European easel painting.
Kehinde Wiley
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I think that's kind of indicative of a type of self-confidence that people develop when they recognize their own ability to create.
Kehinde Wiley
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The ability to look at certain patterns with regards to urban fashion, with regards to swagger, with regards to cultural hegemony, with regards to the ways in which young people look at resistance culture as a pattern that should be mimicked and admired.
Kehinde Wiley
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My assistants generally do all the flowers and all of the decorative work. I concentrate on the figure.
Kehinde Wiley
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Mel [ Bochner] held large-form meetings with students. But the stronger points came through when we had the one-on-one critiques. And that's the system that works at Yale. There's the group critiques, and then there's the one-on-one critiques that happen in studio.
Kehinde Wiley
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I actually studied cooking and, like, was thinking about becoming a chef.
Kehinde Wiley