Top Kehinde Wiley Quotes - Quotesmemo.com

Kehinde Wiley Biography

Kehinde Wiley (born 1977) is a New York City-based portrait painter who is known for his highly naturalistic paintings of African-Americans. The Columbus Museum of Art, which hosted an exhibition of his work in 2007, describes his work as follows: "Wiley has gained recent acclaim for his heroic portraits which address the image and status of young African-American men in contemporary culture."

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Kehinde Wiley Quotes

I was surrounded by art by virtue of not only the educational opportunities that my mother's foresight availed me to.

Art, Availed, Educational, Mother, Virtue

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.

Juggling, Men, Moving, Things, Think, Thinking

When you're at your best, you're analyzing yourself and becoming increasingly isolated from a broader narrative.

Analyzing, Becoming, Broader, Narrative

You know, I'm incredibly blessed to be able to have this level of choice as an artist today. In this economy, it's something that I, you know, pinch myself at constantly, just thinking about how I could wake up tomorrow and decide I'm going to start painting this or that. So it's good.

Artist, Blessed, Decide, Incredibly, Pinch, Thinking

Can I - do I have to be obsessed with it and proceed from that? Not always. But when I'm on top of my game, I definitely think about the way that the world sees me and the way that the world thinks about painting. You must.

Definitely, Game, Games, Proceed, Thinking, World

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.

Culture, Desire, Institutions, Museums, Rule, Thinking

Even the hubris or the desire to go out into the world and find patterns that reflect back to yourself is so Lacanian and, like, mirrored, so as to be ridiculous. But there are very fixed sets of expectations that the world has about this work.

Expectations, Desire, World, Back, Patterns

So sometimes you have to play your hand and sort of push in a direction. And I think that masculinity is the driving point for a lot of the way that people, like, posture in the work.

Driving, Hands, Play, Sort, Thinking, Work

I noticed that the work of my non - I noticed that the work of my friends who were white and male, specifically, existed in a type of freedom that was not bound by certain political questions and assumptions and locations.

Male, Males, Noticed, Political, Specifically, White

What came out of that was an intense obsession with status anxiety. So much of these portraits are about fashioning oneself into the image of perfection that ruled the day in the 18th and 19th centuries. It's an antiquated language, but I think we've inherited that language and have forwarded it to its most useful points in the 21st century.

21St, Anxiety, Centuries, Perfection, Portraits, Thinking

Is it the responsibility of the colored artist or the ethnic artist to create works that are designed to exist in opposition to a certain political structure?

Artist, Create, Opposition, Political, Responsibility, Structure

I'm fully capable of multitasking certain conceptual concerns within the work.

Certain, Conceptual, Concern, Fully, Multitasking

I love being a portraitist.

Love Is, Portraitist, Love

I try to create a place of disorientation.

Create, Disorientation, Place, Trying

I like to play with the conventions around what we expect of paintings historically. But I also like to play with the conventions that you expect from a Kehinde Wiley painting, too.

Conventions, Painting, Paintings, Play, Wiley

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.

Arms, Artist, Call, Ethnicity, Starting

I think that's kind of indicative of a type of self-confidence that people develop when they recognize their own ability to create.

Create, Indicative, People, Self Confidence, Thinking, Type

So much of the hubris that surrounded conceptual art in the 1950s through '70s was that it had this arrogant presupposition that pointing in and of itself was a creative act. It never rigorously politically and socially analyzed the fact that the luxury to point is something that so many people throughout the world don't have.

Art, Conceptual, Luxury, People, Socially

I love the idea of engaging religious sentiment and how that vocabulary has evolved over time.

Idea, Ideas, Religious, Sentiment, Vocabulary

My paintings at their best take that vocabulary and attempt to transpose that into a form that gives respect not only to the history of painting but also to those people who look and sound like me.

Vocabulary, People, Giving, History, Transpose

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