Kehinde Wiley Takes on Women in New Portraits

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A man stands in front of the Djingareyber mosque on February 4, 2016 in Timbuktu, central Mali.
Mali's fabled city of Timbuktu on February 4 celebrated the recovery of its historic mausoleums, destroyed during an Islamist takeover of northern Mali in 2012 and rebuilt thanks to UN cultural agency UNESCO.
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May 4, 2012

By: Joshua R. Weaver for The Root

Contemporary painter Kehinde Wiley is set to debut his latest exhibition, “An Economy of Grace,” at New York’s Sean Kelly Gallery on Saturday, May 5. In the painter’s first exhibition featuring female subjects, Wiley uses his urban baroque style to celebrate the beauty of black women, who, he claims, are often marginalized as subjects in the art world.

“This series of works attempts to reconcile the presence of black female stereotypes that surrounds their presence and/or absence in art history, and the notions of beauty, spectacle, and the ‘grand’ in painting,” Wiley says.

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