Kehinde Wiley- Artist Two

As I reach further into my exam unit, I have started to focus on the topic of Grime culture, with particular focus on the hip hop and music culture with it. As well as that, I am focusing on the opinions and views of the culture, which are often negative, due to society looking down on Grime, and almost creating a convincing view of it as something we should ignore. The theme I have chosen within my exam unit is “create a conversational piece”. Therefore when I was researching artists and found Wiley’s work, I felt it instantly fit the culture I am researching and the way Wiley portrays his work really left a connection with my theme, due to Wiley depicting people with darker skins tones linked within the hip hop culture, then painting them holding these powerful stances, consumed with a royal looking background. Therefore changing two aspects completely. The first being the historical aspect of someone with dark skin being painted within a power stance, historically this did not happen at all, and secondly the idea of hip hop artists being presented as powerful, with a sense of greatness and meaning behind them rather than them being represented as the leaders of a “thug culture”.  Born 1977, Kehinde Wiley is an portraiture artist whose work depicts people, mostly African American, standing in royalist poses with stunning floral prints in the background. Born and raised in LA, Wiley was brought up by his mother. Wiley's father was from Yoruba, Nigeria, which he later returned to, to discover his roots. Throughout his childhood Wiley's mother strongly support his artistic flare, enrolling him within art and drawing classes at young age. Soon after turning twelve, Wiley was given the opportunity to spend a short amount of time within a art school in Russia. Shortly after  finishing school and going to university Wiley received a MFA from Yale university in 2001. This was a huge step within Wiley's career because shorty after receiving this award he became an Artist in Residence, within a studio museum in Harlem. This led to exhibitions after exhibitions showing his work, gaining more interest throughout the art world and creating headlines with modern day culture too. Whilst Wiley's rise to "frame" was quick, his work was and still is able to hold a strong place within art culture. Still showing exhibitions and creating pieces to this day, Wiley has had a total of twenty one exhibitions presenting his work. 

Wiley's paintings mostly depict young men standing in a power stance whilst being surrounded by a floral background. These power stances relate most to the stance held by a master, usually found within old historical paintings. Wiley tends to use old master paintings to recreate the stance held by the individuals posing. This allows a certain amount of power to be obtained and captured within the piece, which I believe is either a way of softening the power or encouraging it with the floral background .i.e. giving it a royalist look. Something which I would like to experiment with my work is to potentially create a juxtaposition between the floral background with we mostly associate with a feminine quality, and swap it with the masculine subject matter associated with men.  

(1)

 Wiley mostly uses young men from his neighbourhood to create the retake on these historical pieces. However, since becoming more well known he has been given the opportunity to paint famous rappers and sports stars, but remains stuck to his roots of finding ordinary men from around his neighbourhood to completely remake within a painting. However, the most recent of Wiley's work "RECOGNIZE!" contains MC's, rappers and the most well known up and coming foot soldiers of todays hip hop industry. Each MC or rapper is given Wiley's body of work to look through before choosing a stance that best suits there personality and focuses on their stage presence. This creates a whole new way of the looking at the hip hop culture.  

(2)

The piece I am currently looking at portrays three separate portraits, all from different angles, laid side by side. There is a predominant figure in each frame, which could either be the same person painted from three angles or three different people. However, an closer inspection leaves me to believe it is the same person. The partly hooded figure is surrounded by a background print I found to be a South American design. The print slowly changes, as it reaches the body of the man, into a floral design, using the same colour scheme. Each piece is enclosed within a beautiful golden frame, which perfectly matches the in detailed elegance of the piece as a whole. The art movement of “Rococo” and the concept of this particular art movement relates well to Wiley’s work. The Rococo art movement happen with the 18th century in France and mainly exhibits the rise of the middle class. The actual word “rococo” derives from the “rocaille” meaning pebble, which were used to decorate the inside of caves. However, this was adapted by upper class societal women who began to competed for the most elaborate designs, mostly containing a shell form, within their homes. Therefore, to me, the art movement Rococo flows with lavish, rich designs, associated with upper class. This is where I believe Wiley’s work links, the elegance of the frames, backed up by the powerful, exuberant floral prints, relates closely to the profligate nature of the Rococo movement. This is also where I feel my theme and personal link works well, Grime culture has an upholding reputation of being a insignificant part of todays culture and is over looked as being something which is almost dirty and uncultured. This is the exact reason why I want to focus on looking at art movements such as Rococo, therefore allowing me to embellish and, give power and supremacy to an often over looked culture. 

(3)

The formal elements of this piece are 2-D unless the frames are included with adding a 3-D element to the piece in general. Other than that the piece stays within the 2-D form. I feel this affects how you see the piece, in my opinion the way the angles have been painted allows a certain 3-D effect on the overall look of the piece. Therefore, if the pieces were separated, I believe they would look completely different and defiantly less intense. Sadly, I have not seen this piece in real life, whilst looking for exhibitions of Wiley's work, I mainly found showings within America. Therefore, I fully understand I am at a disadvantage with only being able to studying the piece through a secondary source, which will effect how I study the work. However, this will not stop me from studying Wiley. Yes, it does set me back, however his work is so inspirational to me, I will continue to look at it anyway. I feel there is a lot of linear mark making within this piece. The form of the piece is 2-D, however the shadows created give it a 3-D effect. By the term shadows, I am specifically talking about the two outside pieces. The hood being up on the individual means there is an aspect of it which creates a 3-D form. In addition to this the slight tilt within the heads of the individual  creates another form. The way the head is titled allows for darker shading therefore creating a shaded effect which to me is 3-D. The tone is piece is utterly beautiful. The colours cascade from lime greens and bright oranges, to a mundane brown and is finished with a coating of gold which runs throughout the piece. There is  however subtle tones within this piece.  They way a white tone is used to reflect light of the character within the pieces adds highlights to the piece. In particular, the cheekbones, forehead and chin, have an incredibly light tone placed upon them. I feel this creates a subtly to the piece, it allows the character to look more realistic, and therefore I feel you tend to connect more and relate to them in more depth. The final piece of tone within this piece, whilst there is many, is the striking gold tone which flows throughout the piece. The tone varies from the golden frames to the background to the flowers placed upon the body of the main character. Similar to the tone, the colours throughout the pieces are vibrant and exciting. The primary colours within the piece are simply the red placed within the logo on the jacket of the character, all of the other colours are secondary colours. I feel the colour which stands out the most to me within this piece is the lime green, I feel the brightness of it is similar to the colour Cinnabar Green LT Ext. This colour is defiantly the most predominant throughout the piece. It attracts to you the piece straight away, which is then accompanied by the golden tones descending down throughout. 

This piece is not completely textured in a traditional sense. By that, I mean there is little texture on the actual piece, but the way the piece has been painted allows levels of texture. For example, the background, then the man and the floral print are layered upon each other. This, therefore creates an effect of the piece having texture. This also relates to the how the artwork is composed. Although this piece is created using three frames therefore relates to the rule of thirds, I feel the way the two other pieces are positioned creates particular emphasis on the the middle frame. Almost like a focus is put on the central piece, an emphasis, which focuses on the more powerful stance in place by the main character. The other noticeable thing about this piece is the way Wiley has used three frames instead of one. The artist could have easily used a larger canvas, and painted all three pieces on the one canvas, similar to what he has done with other pieces. However, Wiley has not done this. Instead he has decided to separate the three portraits of the one individual. This creates a more powerful effect on the piece, the difference of having the separation between the pieces allows you too focus on each one individually which personally I believe is really powerful thing. After studying Wiley's history, I found his pieces are created party linked with freedom and partly linked with his roots. He asks for all  models who he is painting to stand within a "master" pose. This refers to the poses took by masters within the seventeenth to nineteenth century. The figures painted within the series I am studying are all in relation to hip hop and the culture behind it. Seen merely as a cultural hindrance, the culture of hip hop is almost given a royal aspect within this piece. The juxtaposition of the hip hop and an upper class sense creates visually stunning pieces by the artist, which have deep rooted meaning behind them all. 

To conclude, Wiley's work has really inspired me and this is purely from studying his life and his pieces. I feel the cultural relevance behind his work links really well to my theme. The idea of having these MC'S and hip hop artist within the mist of something which seems to look royal, completely changes they way you think about the industry. It strikes me that adding a frame, changing a pose, or background to something will effect how you perceive the image. This is exactly where I want my theme to link. I want to create a conversational piece out of a culture which in my opinion is seen as the underbelly of society. We don't look at Grime culture as society and celebrate it, we look at this culture with part fear and part disgust. Therefore, Wiley’s work relates really well to my theme, each piece he produces is a conversational piece itself, and I feel having the opportunity to study Wiley will give me the power to produce work strongly changing the general view of Grime. 

(1) Example of Old Master painting. -http://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/art/art-news/8431975/Top-five-Old-Master-paintings-sold-at-auction.html

(2) http://www.npg.si.edu/exhibit/recognize/paintings.html ,Triple Portrait of Charles I , Kehinde Wiley, 2007, Oil and enamel on three canvas, Three stretchers each measuring: 182.9 x 91.4 cm (72 x 36 in),  Rubell Family Collection, Miami

(3) Example of the Rococo movement.-https://www.google.co.uk/imgres?imgurl=https://upload.wikimedia.org/ ikipedia/commons/7/74/BasilikaOttobeurenHauptschiff02.JPG&imgrefurl=https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rococo_architecture&h=2880&w=3840&tbnid=4RQST9fgt3uSwM:&tbnh=160&tbnw=213&docid=6qssIwJmGx7e8M&itg=1&hl=en&usg=__P7hOloCmMxuKBYOrx8FRTYLM4mc=&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwjZo_C5pcPLAhVB1RoKHXC5CNMQ9QEIIzAA

Alexey Kondakov- Artist One

The first artist I found within this journey was the artist Alexey Kondakov. Ukraine based, up and coming artist Kondakov depicts the modern day culture of his home town with photoshopped historical figures perfectly placed within them. Born and raised within Donetsk, Ukraine, Alexey Kondakov grew up within a small family. Kondakov's mother worked as a full time engineer whilst his father worked as a miner. As I have been searching through the internet, looking for more information on Kondakov, I have found little to nothing. Whilst this is frustrating, I believe the fact I am able to study an up and coming artist allows me to watch and develop with the artist. However this does leave me with the problem of having little background information on the artist. Therefore the little I have found, has left me with a small basis on Kondakov's work, however I am still going forward with studying this artist purely due to the fact of his work infatuating and inspiring me. The only person within Kondakov's family who had any connection to art was his grandad, whose hobby  was to create various drawings throughout the second world war. Therefore, without any major influences, Kondakov mainly talks about drawing from a young child and enjoying it. Studying graphic design at  КНУТД  university led Kondakov into exploring with photoshop therefore creating the beautiful series of work which I am studying.  In addition to this working as an art director.

The first part of the series is entitled "Art History in Contemporary Life" and is the first series which  really brought Kondakov into the art world as a uprising artist. However, after realising new digital photos, Kondakov, change the title to " The Daily Life of Gods". Inspired by the painting of Cesar van Everdingen, Kondakov focuses on the "quality time" spent together by the people within these paintings which he links back to the backgrounds of Kiev. Being classed as "new" within the art world Kondakov has had no key exhibitions within his work yet, however to not call this series of photos a key point within his working career so far would be a true tragedy. 

http://www.saatchigallery.com/uk/raine/artist.php?id=383 

Year: 2015

Medium: Digital collage

The piece I am currently studying is from the collection, as perviously mentioned before, "The Daily Life of Gods". It depicts the angelic scene from the painting "Songs of Angels" by the artist William Bouguereau. The piece shows a group of three angels singing to a woman and child, often classed as Jesus and Mary in many religious peoples views. However, their background environment is in complete contrast to their delicate white clothed, clothing. The background is of subway carriages, showing a grimy scene with dirtied seats and cold, steel poles to grip on to. The way the two separate pieces have been photoshopped together leave you with a the women holding the baby, wearing blue and white, contrasting from the angels, sitting down on the discoloured red seats whilst the angels gently lean down besides her to holding various instruments in which they look as if they are playing. The cloth from all of the characters clothing within the painting are almost placed upon the run down floor of the very public transport. It is important to note, no one else is on the carriage, it is left completely empty, or a person has been photoshopped over to create a basis for the painting to lye upon. The formal elements of this piece contain a digitally photoshopped painting into a photograph. The line with this piece would mainly focus on the outline of the painting. This is what I first focused on when seeing the piece, the outline is both a mixture of blunt and gentle. The blunt outline is down alongside the angels wing, the curves of the wing are sharp, and highly contrast with the background of darkness. Whereas the cloth from both all characters clothing is gently cascading onto the floor, therefore leaving a softness between the painting and photo. The tone and colours of this piece are something which really interest me, the dark brown colours within the background of the piece somehow fit with the faded off white colours from the angels clothing. I believe that because the painting was never very bright, or has substantially faded, it has left the backgrounds meshing together in a way. However, I feel the blue dress wore by the woman within the painting leaves the real point of reality within this photo. When first seeing the piece at first glance I mainly focused on the angles wings which led me to think about whether is was photoshopped, however I remained thinking purely about the tones of the piece blended slightly within the background therefore believe it was painted as a whole piece. Seeing the blue contrast with the faded grey and yellow floor is what changed my mind into believe this piece had been photoshopped. However, it was such a small detail which changed my mind within this piece, and the obvious fact of the picture as a whole, that leaves the tones and colours as a mixture of whites, greys, oranges, blues and browns. 

This piece has a varied amount of texture to it. Whilst it would not be classed the same as the texture coming from a piece usually showing texture, such a Burri, I believe the underling tones of the photo being overlaid into the scene leaves you with the slight amount of texture around the edges of the piece, for example, the bases of the clothing, the wings of one of the angels, and the heads of the various characters. The form of this piece is 2-D, it is a flat photo print. Sadly Kondakov has not had any exhibitions for me to go and see his work first hand. In addition to this, his pieces are digital prints therefore are not presented in any physical form. I completely understand the importance of seeing artist work first hand, it had completely changed my perspective of artists work before, and I am sure it will continue to do so with other artists I am yet to discover. However, there is no way of me seeing these pieces in real life, therefore I have had to study them through the main source I have, the internet. The size of the pieces have not been released anywhere over the internet due to them being digital prints, therefore if I was to say they are the standard 6'4 photo size, it would dramatically affect the photos. Being such a small size would really make people look closer, and potentially change how long they take to figure out if the piece has been photoshopped or painted. This is  something I need to take into consideration when starting to create my own pieces. The line of the piece is 2-D and 3-D. The 3-D aspect of the piece would defiantly be the outline of the painting whereas the 2-D aspect lye throughout the whole of the piece. The piece contains little primary colours, most of the colours within the photo would be classed as secondary if used within a painting. However, the posters on the windows of the subway carriage add tiny bursts of colour to the piece, with bright orange, yellow and green. The painting however, contains a mix of white tones and a deep blue colour similar to the colour Old Delft Blue. 

The main mark making techniques throughout this piece does not allow me to study them with the way I would normally study a piece such as a painted piece for example. However, this intrigued me, the mark making techniques within this piece are defiantly specific. The way Kondakov has a left a smoothness within his photoshopping means he has created a blend between the background of the photo and painting. Kondakov could have chosen to leave a ruff, edgy background within the piece, yet he did not. The smoothness and natural flow of the clothing from the characters means the piece appears less 3-D. However, the one pin point of the piece which I could see looked slightly rougher with more edge was the wing of the angel. I feel this works really well as it contrasts against the back of the piece. This piece is composed with the characters placed just left of the centre. However, I would not class this as using the rule of thirds, the characters are just off centred enough to make you notice it. I feel the way the photo was taken really affects how the piece has been composed. It looks as if the picture has been taken by Kondakov sitting down and holding the camera at a chests height to allow him to capture the whole one side of the carriage with small amounts of the other side being placed with perspective. I have this opinion mainly because of the seat which has been cut of on the right hand side. 

The composition of the piece really changes how you look at it, the painting is a perfect length from the photo which almost gives a small run away affect. By this I mean, the floor leads up to the painting and with the mixture of the florissant light it allows a gentle spotlight to be placed upon the painting. After reading  short interview articles  upon interview articles about Kondakov I found the main reason behind these selection of pieces were "life". The mixture of the modern day setting and the historical figures placed together create an expression of life and the movement surrounding it. Kondakov did comment of his first series of photos saying they were about spending quality time together. Personally, this piece reflects the beauty of two completely different time periods. In addition to this, the contrast between reality and the illusion of paintings. The two different time periods obviously relates to the time in which the painting was created and time in which the photo was taken. I feel this is relevant to me because of the way the painting strangely seems to fit in within the background. Obviously, I have stated before that some parts do not fit, which does create a beautiful contrast, however the parts which do fit side by side almost allow a time lapse of history. The almost connected pieces of this collage allows the viewer to look at history and modern day within the same piece and I believe that is something extremely admirable. When I make the point of reality and illusion, I believe the painting shows the harsh reality of Kiev, on public transport under the bright lighting with dismal colours. Whereas the painting shows whiter tones adding a certain illusion to the piece. You seemed to be taken in by the purer colours before your eyes make their way back to the surroundings.

I discovered Kondakov on social media, Twitter to be specific. His work was "retweeted" leaving it there for me to discover. The first thing I loved about this piece was the painting, and hoe delicate it was. It then lead me to looking closer at the piece and actually finding a small comedic value within it. It is out of the normal, and interesting, I was infatuated by this exact piece. However, the more of Kondakov's work I found, the more interest was gained. The influence from Kondakov has defiantly led to me wanting to look more in depth at photoshop and look more at contrast images against each other. For example, the contrasting image of youth culture, stereotyping and so forth. To conclude, Kondakov's work has highly influenced me and has allowed me to think in more depth about how I can look at using contrast in high or low levels to change my work. 

 

I felt as if my drawing style was becoming slightly repetitive, and whilst I adore drawing within that particular style, I needed to branch out and experiment with different styles of drawing. In addition to this, I felt my confidence within my drawing has grown therefore, I was able to start experimenting. I decided to try line drawing, something which has always interested me, however I have never tried. Therefore, I created some sketches using a line drawing method. I feel they worked well, and as my confidence grew, I began to add various patterns to the pieces. To conclude, I am happy with how these pieces have turned out, I feel experimenting with various styles of drawings has worked well for me and is something I would like to continue with during this journey. 

After changing mediums I decided to carry on using this medium as I enjoy the way it changed my studies. Therefore, I created various studies focusing on the petals and the form on the flowers in general. To conclude, I enjoy the use of this medium, however feel I need to keep trying to change medium therefore experience different types of ways to draw. 

Since I seemed have become too relaxed with my style of drawing, I decided to move onto using a different type of pen. Using the biro worked, therefore I felt using a different type of pen would still allow me to draw in the style I enjoy. This led to a more controlled style of drawing which allowed me to focus on the the details of the piece. To conclude, I feel the change of medium really helped me to develop my drawing. 

I dislike this piece. I feel that style of it has been completely lost, in addition to this I feel it doesn't look anything what I was drawing. I feel this was partly due to not focusing whilst drawing, and becoming almost too relaxed within this drawing style therefore just making pointless marks. To conclude, I feel this piece and a few others like it did not work, therefore need to potentially move onto using a different medium. 

After drawing with pencil, I found the style wasn't working well therefore decided to move onto using pen. I particularly like biro pen, as it allows me to draw more freely therefore more expressively. I feel this piece represents exactly why I chose to use the biro. The marks made here are much more free, which allowed me to capture more of the image. To conclude, using biro pen allowed me to draw with more of my own style, expressive, and I will continue to use as experiment with this style. 

Throughout my previous topics I've always been fussy about drawings and what I want to draw. Therefore, starting the exam left me with the need to show observational drawings but being reluctant to a start sketchbook. So, I decided to choose what I wanted to draw, I decided to focus on flowers and nature. This was because I have never drawn flowers before and felt it was a good starting point. I began by creating quick sketches and taping the leaves and plants down into the book with the sketches. However, as I progressed taping the flowers down became slightly childish and began to lose their effect of what I was capturing. Therefore, I began just sketching without taping the flowers within my book. However, I started to feel like my drawings were taking to long. Therefore I began to use three minute time limits which allowed me to create more. As my sketches began to develop I found a style in which I really liked drawings. This allowed me to actually enjoy drawing which meant  I was producing more drawings focusing on different aspects of the flowers such as the petals, colour, and shape. As my drawings developed I felt I should start to look at a different style. Something which really interested me was line drawing. Therefore I decided to continue and try it out, I felt it worked extremely well, so began to add various patterns and so forth. I feel talking about my sketchbook as a whole, rather than each individual page, allows me to sum my experience of drawing and how my ideas have developed since. However, I will pin point certain concepts and drawings which did not work and how my drawings did develop. 

https://www.google.co.uk/search?q=grime+culture+/+raves&biw=1256&bih=721&source=lnms&tbm=isch&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwjzuruTnKjLAhVJJJoKHTv2B5kQ_AUIBigB#imgrc=iGSu14rMhxkqZM%3A 

Since editing my previous photos, I felt they weren't working well. The historical figures fitted well within the scene however this was my main problem. They fitted too well, leaving me with photos in which I couldn't develop, due to them firstly not being my own paintings and secondly, I struggled to link my family history within any of these photos, so when I came to editing, the photos just weren't fitting. This left me stuck within my topic, so I re-visited my mind maps, and this led me back to looking at grime culture, something I have been keen on from the start of the exam. Therefore, I have decided to start looking into the grime culture, mainly focusing on the music scene within it, and looking at how the mc's such as Skepta and JME are stereotyped into being harsh, almost savage like with their fashion statements and the way they have been photographed to be seen as dangerous characters within today's society. Therefore I have been pinning various pictures attached to the phrase grime culture in Google. I find it extremely interesting that  most, to nearly of the photos attached to the phrase "grime"  contain a background  with dark scenes containing a harsh light,  reflecting of an MC's "menacing"  face and the people that surround him/her. Therefore I have started to look at creating images by Photoshopping certain objects and changing the back ground to change the relevance and how menacing the photo is.