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.
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.
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.
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.
(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
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