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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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Kehinde Wiley
Age: 47
Born: 1977
Born: February 28
Painter
LA
California
Roles
Passive
Past
Unlike
Doe
Background
Play
European
Many
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Great
Inspired
Poses
Work
Role
Borrowed
Painting
Paintings

More quotes by Kehinde Wiley

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I think that an obsession with art history gave rise to the work.
Kehinde Wiley
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There's quite obviously the desire to open the rule sets that allow for inclusion or disclusion. I think that my hope would be that my work set up certain type of precedent, that allowed for great institutions, museums and viewers to see the possibilities of painting culture to be a bit more inclusive.
Kehinde Wiley
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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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I have a really strong suspicion of the romantic nature of portraiture, the idea that you're telling some essential truth about the interior lives of your subject.
Kehinde Wiley
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Like commercial stuff is sort of cheap and disposable and fun and can be sort of interesting in many ways. I love being in popular culture and existing in the evolution of popular culture. But it's so different from painting, and it's so different from that sort of slow, contemplative, gradual process that painting is.
Kehinde Wiley
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There is something to be said about laying bare the vocabulary of the aristocratic measure, right? There's something to be said about allowing the powerless to tell their own story.
Kehinde Wiley
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I enjoy Chicago as one of the great American cities. When I come here and take a taxi from the airport, I meet a young man from Somalia. I meet a young man from Eritrea who engages with this nation with a sense of hope and a sense of desire. But we also we know that there are other elements of this nation that are toxic.
Kehinde Wiley
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Most people say, Hell, no. I don't know who you are. This scares me. Like, I'm not interested in this.Another way of looking at these paintings is, these are the guys who said yes.
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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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You know, one of my - one of my best and, I think, most enlightening moments was when I was contacted by Michael Jackson. And he requested that I paint his portrait.
Kehinde Wiley
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When you're at your best, you're analyzing yourself and becoming increasingly isolated from a broader narrative.
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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In the end I'm in love with it [Western European easel painting]. And that's where a lot of the influence from the work comes from.
Kehinde Wiley
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I think that artists provide questions, not answers. We provide provocations rather than fully formed objects.
Kehinde Wiley
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I was surrounded by art by virtue of not only the educational opportunities that my mother's foresight availed me to.
Kehinde Wiley
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There was no image of the other biological half of myself. And as an artists, as a - as an - as a portraitist, the look of who you are was radically important to me.
Kehinde Wiley
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Your best as an artist is to create something that resonates for you.
Kehinde Wiley
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I have been painting models with black and brown skin only for the past years. So, I did already have this experience, this is how I have come to the paintings I do now.
Kehinde Wiley
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I mean, the radical contingency that is - that exists and the fact that I'm going into the streets and finding random strangers any given day - who's in these streets that day?
Kehinde Wiley
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I think that I'm increasingly aware of the fact that in order to work towards any statement that's radically global or universal, you have to start in a place that's radically intimate and particular.
Kehinde Wiley