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Artist Kehinde Wiley: a master with street cred

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“How do you find a center core, calm place to create a painting in which there are so many variations, be it cultural, gender, sexuality?” –Kehinde Wiley

Superstar painter Kehinde Wiley returned to his native Los Angeles Saturday night for the opening of his ongoing exhibition at Culver City’s Roberts & Tilton gallery, titled “The World Stage: Israel.”

Born and raised in the neighborhood near the conjunction of Crenshaw and Jefferson boulevards, Wiley’s artistic leanings were nurtured at the Los Angeles County High School for the Arts, and augmented by outings to Southern California museums such as the Huntington Library near Pasadena. There he became acquainted with the canvases of 18th-century masters such as Thomas Gainsborough and Joshua Reynolds, whose influence can still be seen in the pictures that have placed Wiley at the forefront of the global art scene.

Wiley then honed his artistic technique with the pursuit of degrees at the San Francisco Art Institute and Yale University. A major breakthrough came via a commission to produce a series of canvases depicting some of Rap music’s biggest names, including LL Cool J, Ice T, and the Notorious B.I.G. for VH1’s Hip-Hop Honors.

Since then, he has become world-renowned for his oversized canvases depicting young men of color in settings that borrow heavily from the Renaissance portraiture of a bygone era. Wiley typically chooses his subjects from people he encounters in Columbus, Ohio; Los Angeles and New York, and they are usually clad in the baggy pants, hoodies, and oversized athletic apparel associated with inner-city youth. He then invites them back to his studio. They are then photographed and the images enlarged and digitally manipulated to achieve the vision the artist wants to paint.

A major factor pushing Wiley’s popularity may be his skillful juxtaposition of individuals one might encounter on a daily commute in the local Metro, and then transplanted onto settings normally associated with gentille aristocracy. The old and new are intertwined, as he elevates anonymous men of color into iconic, idealized impressions both commonplace and heroic. In Wiley’s eyes, the proletariat has become royalty.

As a result, this Jefferson Park native has attained the rarefied position of a critical, commercial and cultural art icon. His paintings have been selected for inclusion into the permanent depositories of such venerated institutions as the Kansas City (Missouri) Museum, the Studio Museum of Harlem, and the Walker Art Center in Minneapolis, Minn.

Among the private collectors who’ve selected his work to adorn their homes are such luminaries as Elton John, Russell Simmons and Denzel Washington.

Hotly pursued by sportswear brands eager to utilize his ties to urban culture and “street cred,” he agreed to produce a series of images in collaboration with PUMA AG and FIFA to promote the 2010 World Cup soccer tournament, widely heralded as the world’s most widely viewed sporting event.

In keeping with the decorative designs he commonly uses in the backgrounds of his canvases, many of the bold, expressive patterns have been replicated as graphic motifs on the footwear and accessories promoted for the competition.

With prices for a single canvas starting at $40,000, Wiley hobnobs with celebrities while retaining a measure of accessibly. Krista Ware, his studio manager, says that Roberts & Tilton, along with other galleries representing him welcome calls from potential collectors wishing to purchase his work.

Art critics have scrutinized his art for sexual content (most, if not all of his subjects are male), but Wiley seems to be striving to highlight a commonality linking Black and Brown members of the Diaspora around the world. Towards that end he has adopted a nomadic lifestyle, setting up studios in such dissimilar environs as the favelas of Rio de Janeiro; among the artisans and laborers in Beijing, China; in the midst of post-colonial tribes people in the markets of Dakar, Senegal, and in the streets of Tel Aviv, where he interacted with Ethiopian Jews and Palestians for this latest segment of his World Stage series. Wiley summed up his own interpretation of the World Stage with the following statement:

“There are certain patterns that exist in our culture. It’s informed clearly by a type of Hip Hop aesthetic that may have seen started in Brooklyn in the 1970s–but that thing has jettisoned itself throughout the world and become something universally recognized as being the premier feature of the global popular culture.”

“The World Stage: Israel” continues at Roberts & Tilton, 5801 Washington Blvd., Culver City (just west of Fairfax Avenue and east of La Cienega Blvd.) from April 9 through May 28. For more information, call (323) 549-0223.

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