Kehinde Wiley - Artist Research

Kehinde Wiley is a an American Portrait Painter based in New York City, and is best known for his naturalistic portrait paintings of African Americans. I chose to talk about him and his work because I believe it relates so much to the topic in discussion about toxic masculinity, as well as the general topic of Masculinity and Femininity. Wiley’s paintings and portraits take figures and people and represent them in a different light to what would be expected just from their looks. Portraits like the one below is an example of Wiley trying to capture everyday African Americans but in a more positive light with beautiful poses. This is to challenge the idea of ‘normal’ portraits and now traditional ones are usually of rich white men and are also bought by rich white men. Wiley turns this around by not only being African himself but almost always paints African Americans. Therefore breaking down this ‘traditional’ outlook on what portraits are and how they should look.

The figures he paints that I am most interested in are like the ones above that clearly show a character that would generally be classed as ‘Masculine’. This man would most likely be generalised and stereotyped if he walked down a street, just by the way he looks. Seen as an overly Masculine man with his baggy clothing, jewellery and hat. Which to some would class as someone who could cause trouble. Wiley’s use of bright colours, flowers and composition challenge these stereotypes and allow us to see them figures in a much more positive way. We are able to see more about these characters and understand that they are not the generalisations that people give them, before we are given the chance to know them as people. The masculinity that was originally at the forefront of this mans representation is now taken away and we are therefore left with a more open and free person within the portrait.

Wiley challenges other gender stereotypes with other paintings in his series, which really push the idea that many of us are not the stereotypes that are put upon us. Like the portrait above that is from a series of paintings that Wiley did for Tahiti’s Mahu community - the third gender. Their a group of non-binary people who exist somewhere between male and female, they live on the French Polynesian island of Tahiti. This supports my discussion about Masculinity and Femininity and how the traits we think we should be assigned with are not at all what we should settle with. The bright colours in the painting above, I think, really represent that. The colours pink and blue that are traditional gender assigned, are merged together in this beautiful patterned design. Representing the idea of gender not being just two things, there is more to it than that and there are so many people who feel they are more than what they are expected to settle with.