Kehinde Wiley Quotes

Powerful Kehinde Wiley for Daily Growth

About Kehinde Wiley

Kehinde Wiley (born February 20, 1977) is an American artist renowned for his vibrant, large-scale portraits that reinterpret historical paintings by master artists to include contemporary African-American subjects. His innovative and thought-provoking work has placed him at the forefront of modern art. Born in Los Angeles, California, Wiley spent much of his childhood in South Central LA before moving to San Francisco with his mother at age nine. He later attended the San Francisco Art Institute and Yale University School of Art. His early experiences in urban America have significantly influenced his art, as he aims to challenge societal norms and perceptions about race, class, and gender. In 1999, Wiley moved to New York City to pursue a career as an artist. He quickly gained recognition for his series "World Stage," which features portraits of individuals from different countries and cities around the world. This work served as a platform for highlighting the diverse beauty of global cultures. One of his most famous pieces, "Napoleon Leading the Army over the Alps" (2017), is a modern reinterpretation of Jacques-Louis David's famous painting. Wiley replaced Napoleon with an African-American man wearing streetwear, surrounded by a lush landscape. This powerful piece was displayed at the National Gallery in London. Wiley's works have been featured in numerous prestigious institutions, including The Metropolitan Museum of Art and the Brooklyn Museum in New York City, and he has had solo exhibitions at the Modern Art Museum of Fort Worth, Texas, and the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts, Richmond. In 2018, he completed "Rumors of War," a permanent public sculpture commission for Times Square, New York. Wiley's unique ability to bridge the gap between historical masterpieces and contemporary urban culture has made him one of the most significant artists of our time. His work continues to provoke thought and inspire dialogue about representation and identity in art.

Interpretations of Popular Quotes

"I make paintings about the world as it is, a world where race and class are deeply entrenched in every facet of life."

Kehinde Wiley's quote suggests that his artwork reflects the reality of contemporary society, where issues such as race and social class are systemic and pervasive. By creating portraits that juxtapose African-American subjects with historical European backgrounds, Wiley highlights the ongoing disparities between these two groups, emphasizing the need for greater understanding, empathy, and progress towards a more equitable world.

"In my work, I am interested in the beauty and the absurdity of power."

In this quote, Kehinde Wiley's statement "I am interested in the beauty and the absurdity of power" emphasizes his exploration of two distinct yet interconnected aspects of power: its aesthetically appealing or impressive facets (beauty) and its irrational, incongruous, or paradoxical nature (absurdity). By juxtaposing these concepts, Wiley sheds light on the complexities inherent in the concept of power, which can often be both admired for its allure and criticized for its absurd or unjust manifestations. His artwork offers a unique perspective, inviting viewers to reconsider notions of power, authority, and representation within contemporary society.

"I've always been struck by the idea that we have these incredibly ornate frames around our portraits but then the actual figures within those frames can be quite rudimentary."

Kehinde Wiley's quote signifies a contrast between extravagant, decorative backdrops (symbolizing power and grandeur) and the simpler, less adorned subjects (often people of color or underrepresented communities). This juxtaposition highlights the disproportionate attention given to material wealth and opulence compared to the people themselves. It also subtly comments on societal norms that often elevate surroundings over individuals, especially when it comes to depicting marginalized groups.

"I think that there is a moment in which beauty becomes power, and that power becomes a kind of weapon."

Kehinde Wiley's quote suggests that beauty, when wielded effectively, can transform into a potent force. This power derived from beauty functions as a formidable weapon, capable of influencing and altering the social landscape. It implies that beauty is not merely an aesthetic attribute but also holds significant political and cultural implications. By leveraging this power, one can challenge norms, exert influence, or make a profound impact on society.

"My work is about the space between the idea of black male beauty and the realities of black male violence."

Kehinde Wiley's quote suggests that his artwork explores the complexities, contradictions, and misconceptions surrounding the perception of Black male identity in contemporary society. By juxtaposing the idealized concept of beauty with the often stereotyped portrayal of violence, he emphasizes the duality that many Black men face - being both admired for their physical attractiveness and simultaneously stigmatized by societal assumptions about violence and crime. Wiley uses his art as a platform to challenge these narrow narratives and promote more nuanced and inclusive depictions of Black masculinity.

Being a kid with black skin in South Central Los Angeles, in a part of the world where opportunity didn't necessarily knock every day, is what gave me this sensibility and drove me to explore my fascination with art.

- Kehinde Wiley

Every Day, Knock, South, Sensibility

My work is a contemporary call to arms. It is time to get our mojo back. To rediscover our true north.

- Kehinde Wiley

Work, Rediscover, North, Mojo

Branding says a lot about luxury and about exclusion and about the choices that manufacturers make, but I think that what society does with it after it's produced is something else. And the African-American community has always been expert at taking things and repurposing them toward their own ends.

- Kehinde Wiley

Expert, Been, I Think, Manufacturers

I do think that fist-waving conversations around liberation ideologies are sort of dated - I'm not creating Barbara Kruger moments of self-actualization - what I'm trying to do is create more moments of chaos where we don't really know where we are: to destabilize; where all the rules are suspended temporarily.

- Kehinde Wiley

Rules, Around, Ideologies, Liberation

I grew up in this weird, educationally elite but economically impoverished environment. Total 'Oprah' story.

- Kehinde Wiley

Weird, Oprah, Grew, Impoverished

My mother introduced to me as a child the world of language: the way in which translation can be a system by which you can understand others.

- Kehinde Wiley

Language, Understand, Which, Translation

I have a fondness for making paintings that go beyond just having a conversation about art for art's sake or having a conversation about art history. I actually really enjoy looking at broader popular culture.

- Kehinde Wiley

Art, Making, Fondness, Popular Culture

Artists have been very good at working for the church and for the state; communicating the aspirations of a society.

- Kehinde Wiley

Society, Been, Very, Aspirations

Questlove is an artist who I respect because he constantly shifts within the idiom, challenging perceptions of hip-hop and black American culture.

- Kehinde Wiley

Black, Artist, Within, Shifts

What's interesting about the 21st century is how people deal with cultural history. We don't necessarily feel like there are discrete categories. We consume it as a complete package, whether it's down the street or on the other side of the globe.

- Kehinde Wiley

Deal, Other, About, Categories

For years, I've been painting black men as a way to respond to the reality of the streets. I've asked black men to show up in my studio in the clothes that they want to be wearing. And often times, those clothes would be the same trappings people would see on television and find menacing.

- Kehinde Wiley

Streets, Been, Studio, Trappings

It's sad, the enslavement of the black underclass to designer labels - we're an age that cares more about Versace than Vermeer.

- Kehinde Wiley

More, Cares, Versace, Enslavement

In the end, what I'm trying to say as a person who does all this travel and fashions these images is that you arrive at an approximate location but never one destination.

- Kehinde Wiley

Images, Fashions, Approximate

Obama stands as a signal that this nation will continue to redefine what it means to push beyond the borders of what's possible.

- Kehinde Wiley

Will, Nation, Means, Signal

The art world has become so insular. The rules have become so autodidactic that, in a sense, they lose track of what people have any interest in thinking about, talking about, or even looking at.

- Kehinde Wiley

Art, Lose, About, Insular

My style is in the 21st century. If you look at the process, it goes from photography through Photoshop, where certain features are heightened, elements of the photo are diminished. There is no sense of truth when you're looking at the painting or the photo or that moment when the photo was first taken.

- Kehinde Wiley

Moment, Through, No Sense, Photoshop

My sexuality is not black and white. I'm a gay man who has occasionally drifted. I am not bi. I've had perfectly pleasant romances with women, but they weren't sustainable. My passion wasn't there. I would always be looking at guys.

- Kehinde Wiley

Sexuality, Had, Perfectly, Romances

My interest is in completing an image that is spectacular beyond belief. My fidelity is to the image and the art and not to the bragging rights of making every stroke on every flower. I'm realistic.

- Kehinde Wiley

Art, Making, Image, Completing

It's amazing how, in New York, there is almost a feeling of entitlement by the public - this very palpable lack of surprise at being stopped in the street and being asked to be the subject of a 12-foot monumental painting.

- Kehinde Wiley

Surprise, New, Very, Entitlement

In the end, so much of what I wanted to do was to have a body of work that exhaustively looked at black American notions of masculinity: how we look at black men - how they're perceived in public and private spaces - and to really examine that, going from every possible angle.

- Kehinde Wiley

American, Private, Examine, Spaces

I taught myself to paint African-Americans, mostly people roughly my skin tone.

- Kehinde Wiley

Tone, Taught, Mostly, Roughly

The way we think about a presidential portrait is one that is imbued with dignity from the outset.

- Kehinde Wiley

Think, About, Outset, Presidential

I'm about looking at each of those perceived menacing black men that you see in the streets all over the place, people that you oftentimes will walk past without assuming that they have the same humanity, fears that we all do.

- Kehinde Wiley

Streets, Without, About, Menacing

Gauguin is creepy - let's just face it. He goes off into the Pacific, and he's looking at these young girls, and the colonial gaze: It's just really problematic.

- Kehinde Wiley

Young, Goes, Young Girls, Gaze

I think my life has been transformed by the ability to take things that exist in the world and look at them more closely. I think that's what art does at its best: it allows us to slow down.

- Kehinde Wiley

My Life, Been, I Think, Transformed

I know how young black men are seen. They're boys - scared little boys, oftentimes. I was one of them. I was completely afraid of the Los Angeles Police Department.

- Kehinde Wiley

Young, Oftentimes, Angeles, Department

My mother sent me to art classes at the age of 11. I began to have kids around me say, 'Will you make drawings for me? Will you make a painting for me?' And it really clicked.

- Kehinde Wiley

Art, Will, Began, Clicked

The reality of Barack Obama being the president of the United States - quite possibly the most powerful nation in the world - means that the image of power is completely new for an entire generation of not only black American kids but every population group in this nation.

- Kehinde Wiley

Nation, United, Obama, Possibly

I've jokingly painted some of my favorite collectors as black men, so there's a really great portrait of David LaChapelle, the photographer - my version of him - that's in his collection.

- Kehinde Wiley

Black, Some, Painted, Collectors

There's something to be said about the art-industrial complex, the collectors who recognize that your work has some sort of future economic value.

- Kehinde Wiley

Work, Some, About, Collectors

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

Think, Going, I Think, Grain

What I try to do is defy expectations in terms of boundaries, whether it is high or low art, pop culture, or fine-art culture. My work is about reconciling myriad cultural influences and bringing them into one picture.

- Kehinde Wiley

High, About, Pop, Reconciling

My father is Nigerian; my mother is from Texas and African-American. My father was the first in his family to go to university. He flew from Nigeria to Los Angeles in the '70s to go to UCLA, where he met my mother. They broke up before I was born, and he returned to Nigeria.

- Kehinde Wiley

Father, University, Before, UCLA

My love affair with painting is bittersweet.

- Kehinde Wiley

Love, Painting, Bittersweet, Affair

If you look at the paintings that I love in art history, these are the paintings where great, powerful men are being celebrated on the big walls of museums throughout the world. What feels really strange is not to be able to see a reflection of myself in that world.

- Kehinde Wiley

Love, Big, Feels, Celebrated

Artists should be able to thrive and allow their ideas to flourish as much as those in biotechnology or finance.

- Kehinde Wiley

Artists, Flourish, Allow, Thrive

Art is about changing what we see in our everyday lives and representing it in such a way that it gives us hope.

- Kehinde Wiley

Art, Everyday Lives, Lives, Everyday

When I was growing up and going to art school and learning about African-American art, much of it was a type of political art that was very didactic and based on the '60s, and a social collective.

- Kehinde Wiley

Art, Very, Based, Art School

My work is not about paint. It's about paint at the service of something else. It is not about gooey, chest-beating, macho '50s abstraction that allows paint to sit up on the surface as subject matter about paint.

- Kehinde Wiley

Work, Surface, Subject, Macho

I rarely meet a lot of the people who buy and collect my work.

- Kehinde Wiley

Work, Meet, Lot, Collect

The beauty of art is that it allows you to slow down, and for a moment, things that once seemed unfamiliar become precious to you.

- Kehinde Wiley

Beauty, Art, Precious, Unfamiliar

This idea that my work is about hip-hop is a little reductive. What I'm interested in is the performance of masculinity, the performance of ethnicity, and how they intermingle across cultures.

- Kehinde Wiley

Work, Ethnicity, Idea, Hip-Hop

I've fished everywhere I've traveled.

- Kehinde Wiley

Everywhere, Traveled

I think I've come through the art-industrial complex - I've been educated in some of the best institutions and been privy to some of the insider conversations around theory and the evolution of art.

- Kehinde Wiley

Think, Through, Some, Insider

Stained glass is unique from the outside, but as a painting insider, I know that oil painting's all about light. And it's about the depiction of light, the way that it bounces off different types of skin, different landscapes. The mastery of that light is the obsession of most of my painter friends.

- Kehinde Wiley

Skin, Stained, About, Insider

It's so easy just to see the one-to-one narrative between presence and non-presence.

- Kehinde Wiley

See, Easy, Narrative, Presence

Artists are those people who sit at the intersection between the known and unknown, the rational and irrational, coming to terms with some of the confusing histories we, as artists, deal with.

- Kehinde Wiley

Some, Deal, Histories, Intersection

The ability to be the first African-American painter to paint the first African-American president of the United States is absolutely overwhelming. It doesn't get any better than that.

- Kehinde Wiley

Paint, United, United States, Overwhelming

You have to be careful about over-politicizing the utterances of people of colour because, oftentimes, there's poetry that seeks to go beyond that narrative.

- Kehinde Wiley

Be Careful, Oftentimes, Seeks

I'm like a gypsy. I've got a place in Beijing, a place in New York, a place in west Africa; I'm working on a place in Colombia. I like the fact that painting is portable - and I've wanted my entire life to be able to see the world, to respond to it, and make that my life's work.

- Kehinde Wiley

Fact, Gypsy, Beijing, Colombia

The games I'm playing have much more to do with using the language of power and the vocabulary of power to construct new sentences. It's about pointing to empire and control and domination and misogyny and all those social ills in the work, but it's not necessarily taking a position. Oftentimes, it's actually embodying it.

- Kehinde Wiley

Domination, About, Sentences, Empire

As a working artist, I became increasingly aware of the patterns we see in the street and in America, becoming globalized in terms of pop culture and global and social outlook.

- Kehinde Wiley

Artist, Became, Increasingly, Outlook

When I'm at my best, I'm trying to destabilize myself and figure out new ways of approaching art as a provocation. I think I am at my best when I push myself into a place where I don't have all the answers.

- Kehinde Wiley

Best, I Think, Approaching, Provocation

There's something really cool about taking oily coloured paste and pushing it around with these hairy sticks and making something that looks like you. That's the magic of painting.

- Kehinde Wiley

Magic, Making, Like, Sticks

I grew up in South Central Los Angeles in the '80s, back when it just wasn't a cool scene. But my mother had the foresight to look for a number of projects that would keep us away from the streets.

- Kehinde Wiley

Away, Streets, Projects, Foresight

Painting does more than just point to things. The very act of pointing is a value statement.

- Kehinde Wiley

Painting, Act, Very, Pointing

Art in the age of the digital image is completely different from experiencing art in physical form.

- Kehinde Wiley

Art, Digital, Image, Experiencing

We all look at the same object in different ways.

- Kehinde Wiley

Same, Ways, Different Ways, Object

I remember the first time I went to the Los Angeles County Museum of Art and saw a Kerry James Marshall painting with black bodies in it on a museum wall... It strengthened me on a cellular level.

- Kehinde Wiley

I Remember, Bodies, James, Los Angeles

My paintings are very much about the consumption and production of blackness. And how blackness is marketed to the world.

- Kehinde Wiley

How, Very, Blackness, Consumption

Painting has the ability to communicate something about the sitter that gets to his essence.

- Kehinde Wiley

Painting, Communicate, His, Sitter

Fashion is fragile and fleeting. But it is also an indicator for the cultural and social appetites for a nation.

- Kehinde Wiley

Cultural, Indicator, Appetites

What I wanted to do was to look at the powerlessness that I felt as - and continue to feel at times - as a black man in the American streets. I know what it feels like to walk through the streets, knowing what it is to be in this body and how certain people respond to that body.

- Kehinde Wiley

Through, Powerlessness, Respond

I thought I'd be a chef by night and paint by day. Now I just have fabulous dinner parties.

- Kehinde Wiley

Night, Chef, Thought, Fabulous

It was an amazing childhood, despite what you might think about black struggle and poor neighbourhoods and the ghetto. My mother was an educated, budding linguist who really inspired us. Some of the leading indicators of success in the world have to do with how many books are in the house when you're a kid.

- Kehinde Wiley

Kid, Some, Leading, Ghetto

I am interested in evolution within my thinking. I am not interested in the evolution of my paint.

- Kehinde Wiley

I Am, Paint, Within, Not Interested

In a sense, we are all victims of the misogyny and racism that exist in the world, no matter what our gender or race happens to be.

- Kehinde Wiley

Racism, Gender, Race, Victims

There is something that always will be true about painting and sculpture - that in order to really get it, you have to show up. That is something that is both sad and kind of beautiful about it. It remains analog. It remains special and irreducible.

- Kehinde Wiley

Kind, Will, Always, Sculpture

Many people see my early work simply as portraits of black and brown people. Really, it's an investigation of how we see those people and how they have been perceived over time.

- Kehinde Wiley

Work, Over, Been, Early Work

The erotic and the art historical imagination is something that gets very little play when people talk about my work, and when they rarely do, they try to problematize it.

- Kehinde Wiley

Art, Play, Very, Rarely

I came from a background where access to museum culture was rarely granted, and, when you got it, people wondered what the hell you were doing there.

- Kehinde Wiley

Doing, Access, Got, Rarely

If art can be at the service of anything, it's about letting us see a state of grace for those people who rarely get to be able to be seen that way.

- Kehinde Wiley

Art, People, About, Rarely

You don't hire Kehinde Wiley to have a tame painting.

- Kehinde Wiley

Painting, You, Hire, Tame

Portraits are about revealing aspects of an individual.

- Kehinde Wiley

Individual, About, Revealing, Portraits

In the field of aesthetic theory, humans are pattern-seeking creatures. That can be seen in terms of musical structures, patternmaking, even in terms of storytelling and literature.

- Kehinde Wiley

Storytelling, Aesthetic, Structures

During 1989, my mother, who was exceedingly good at finding these free programs - you know, we were on welfare, just trying to get through - but she would find these amazing programs. She sent me to the Soviet Union at the age of 12 to go study in the forest of then-Leningrad with 50 other Soviet kids.

- Kehinde Wiley

Forest, Study, Through, Programs

I think the pairing of your material practice with your subject is something that is the constant concern of every artist for time immemorial.

- Kehinde Wiley

Practice, Think, I Think, Concern

Once I get a project in my head, I start getting really obsessive about it.

- Kehinde Wiley

Head, Once, Getting, Obsessive

I started making work that I assumed would be far too garish, far too decadent, far too black for the world to care about. I, to this day, am thankful to whatever force there is out there that allows me to get away with painting the stories of people like me.

- Kehinde Wiley

Thankful, Away, About, Decadent

At its best, what art does is, it points to who we as human beings and what we as human beings value. And if Black Lives Matter, they deserve to be in paintings.

- Kehinde Wiley

Art, Deserve, Lives, Points

What you have in my work is one person's path as he travels through the world, and there is no limitation of what is conceivable.

- Kehinde Wiley

Path, Through, Limitation, Travels

There is - and always will be - the legacy of chattel slavery in this nation, an obsession with racial and gender differences, but I think that, at its best, this nation is capable of creating standards for itself and reaching towards those standards.

- Kehinde Wiley

Think, Always, I Think, Slavery

At the core, every artist, no matter what his subject matter happens to be, has to be someone doing the looking. I began to really interrogate the act of looking.

- Kehinde Wiley

Doing, Artist, Began, Core

In America , there's a just-add-water reality TV world in which people expect to get their Warholian 15 minutes of fame.

- Kehinde Wiley

Minutes, TV, Which, 15 Minutes

I need to open a restaurant, a big soul food restaurant in Beijing!

- Kehinde Wiley

Soul, Big, Need, Beijing

When I thought about the absolute favourite of favourites or what stood for the best of haute couture, it was Givenchy.

- Kehinde Wiley

Thought, Favourites, Couture

Europe has been a place of refuge. Why should it stop with black and brown bodies?

- Kehinde Wiley

Stop, Been, Bodies, Brown

What is portraiture? It's choice. It's the ability to position your body in the world for the world to celebrate you on your own terms.

- Kehinde Wiley

Celebrate, Own, Your, Your Body

Painting from life is a completely different monster, which I like. But because I've been painting from photography for so long, I've learned my best moves from photography.

- Kehinde Wiley

Like, Been, Which, Photography

When you go back to the days when I was studying how to paint, some of the things that excited me most was to go into the Huntington Library and Gardens and to see the amazing pictures of the landed gentry.

- Kehinde Wiley

Studying, Some, Gardens, Landed

I think it would be really interesting to paint Obama.

- Kehinde Wiley

Think, I Think, Would, Paint

I understand blackness from the inside out. What my goal is, is to allow the world to see the humanity that I know personally to be the truth.

- Kehinde Wiley

Goal, Understand, Allow, Blackness

By and large, most of the work that we see in the great museums throughout the world are populated with people who don't happen to look like me.

- Kehinde Wiley

Happen, Like, Large, Museums

The language of the heroic is something that has evolved over time.

- Kehinde Wiley

Language, Over, Evolved, Heroic

One of the things that has inspired me so much is knowing that I felt like I could never measure up.

- Kehinde Wiley

Like, Could, Felt, One Of The Things

So much of the history of painting is the propaganda of self-aggrandizement.

- Kehinde Wiley

Painting, Propaganda, The History Of

Painting is about the world that we live in. Black men live in the world. My choice is to include them.

- Kehinde Wiley

Men, Painting, World, Include

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