One of the my favourite young american artists, Kehinde Wiley, showed a series of works at the Seattle Art Museum and I was lucky enough to be town during the exhibit which ran till May 8, 2016. Kehinde is best known for his portraits of African Americans whom he places in historically well known classical artwork poses. In doing so, he elevates the models he finds off the streets of Brooklyn or elsewhere into positions usually reserved for those with higher status. The exhibit titled “A New Republic” is a good retrospective of his work so far and also shows Kehinde’s “Economy of Grace” series which features women. The accompanying documentary of how he put his “Economy of Grace” series of works is worth watching to get a sense of how he puts his paintings together. As the Seattle Art Museum states, Kehinde’s work is very much about “the portrait as a statement of power and the individual’s sense of empowerment”.

Kehinde has referenced a wide variety of historical paintings including the following two, which were well know Mao era paintings in China. The originals show uniformed girls proud of their allegiance to the communist cause. These two are part of Kehinde’s China series. Incidentally, he has an affinity for Beijing where he maintains a studio.

One of my favourite paintings at the exhibit is of a young man posed as Jean-Antoine Houdon’s sculpture titled Morpheus. While the original sculpture has Morpheus shielding his face, Kehinde’s version has the young man staring intently out. Kehinde portrays his models in the clothes that they arrive at his studio in – they are photographed in the various poses before he transfers the images to the canvas. It’s only for the Economy of Grace series of portraits of women where he worked with Givenchy designer Riccardo Tisci to create dresses for the models.

The original portrait of the above painting was by British artist Sir Edwin Landseer. The above model also served for his other painting – Shantavia Beale II.

Some other paintings in the gallery below.