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137 The Virgin Martyr Cecilia (Ndey Buri), 2022, painting
Transcript
ABRAM JACKSON: A tender, realistic portrayal of a Roman Christian Martyr dead in her tomb was Wiley’s starting point for this figure. The artist has long been interested in experimenting with backgrounds – here, he’s decided to fill it with poppies.
KEHINDE WILEY: Historically, backgrounds have been: powerful man sitting on his land - everything's a possession. It's, the animals are my possession, the house is my possession. I decided to fill it with this decorative floral. It's the emptying out of all of that anxiety surrounding possession, and to fill it with the simple act of growing itself.
ABRAM JACKSON: The poppies’ vivid colors complement the warm highlights on the figure’s skin. Wiley, with Black American roots from his mother, and Nigerian roots from his father, has spent time in West Africa recently, and many of his models for works in this show are from Senegal.
KEHINDE WILEY: Africa's had a huge impact on my work because I go to the marketplaces and I see fabrics that are inspiring, I see colors that are inspiring, histories and botanicals that don't exist in my work before. I also see different types of Blackness that exist there.
I learned how to paint skin by using whiteness as the model through which the world is seen. There is no real tradition of painting Black skin in western easel painting and so you have to make that up yourself - that's creating a vocabulary of Blackness, a playbook of Blackness.
One of the cool things about my shows is that you start to see young Black and Brown kids showing up in the museums, as though that institution were there for them. And it should be.
ABRAM JACKSON: Once you’re finished in this space, go back through the previous gallery. As you pass the huge painting of the man in a yellow shirt, turn right. Our next stop is a painting of a woman in a red top, seated on an orange cloth.
Image: Kehinde Wiley (American, born 1977), “The Virgin Martyr Cecelia (Ndey Buri),” 2022. Oil on canvas, 77 3/8 x 143 3/4 in. (196.6 x 365.2 cm), Framed: 88 7/16 x 154 13/16 x 3 15/16 in. (224.6 x 393.2 x 10 cm). © Kehinde Wiley. Courtesy of Galerie Templon, Paris. Photo: Ugo Carmeni
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By Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco
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Transcript
ABRAM JACKSON: A tender, realistic portrayal of a Roman Christian Martyr dead in her tomb was Wiley’s starting point for this figure. The artist has long been interested in experimenting with backgrounds – here, he’s decided to fill it with poppies.
KEHINDE WILEY: Historically, backgrounds have been: powerful man sitting on his land - everything's a possession. It's, the animals are my possession, the house is my possession. I decided to fill it with this decorative floral. It's the emptying out of all of that anxiety surrounding possession, and to fill it with the simple act of growing itself.
ABRAM JACKSON: The poppies’ vivid colors complement the warm highlights on the figure’s skin. Wiley, with Black American roots from his mother, and Nigerian roots from his father, has spent time in West Africa recently, and many of his models for works in this show are from Senegal.
KEHINDE WILEY: Africa's had a huge impact on my work because I go to the marketplaces and I see fabrics that are inspiring, I see colors that are inspiring, histories and botanicals that don't exist in my work before. I also see different types of Blackness that exist there.
I learned how to paint skin by using whiteness as the model through which the world is seen. There is no real tradition of painting Black skin in western easel painting and so you have to make that up yourself - that's creating a vocabulary of Blackness, a playbook of Blackness.
One of the cool things about my shows is that you start to see young Black and Brown kids showing up in the museums, as though that institution were there for them. And it should be.
ABRAM JACKSON: Once you’re finished in this space, go back through the previous gallery. As you pass the huge painting of the man in a yellow shirt, turn right. Our next stop is a painting of a woman in a red top, seated on an orange cloth.
Image: Kehinde Wiley (American, born 1977), “The Virgin Martyr Cecelia (Ndey Buri),” 2022. Oil on canvas, 77 3/8 x 143 3/4 in. (196.6 x 365.2 cm), Framed: 88 7/16 x 154 13/16 x 3 15/16 in. (224.6 x 393.2 x 10 cm). © Kehinde Wiley. Courtesy of Galerie Templon, Paris. Photo: Ugo Carmeni