Kehinde Wiley, the artist behind former President Barack Obama’s much-mocked official portrait, has a dark theme he likes to dabble in when it comes to painting.
Art critic Gayle Clemans said of a recent exhibition of the portrait artist, that he “asks us to think about biases in the art-historical canon and pop culture, as well as issues of race, class, gender and sexual orientation.”
“He fuses awkwardness with elegance, intimacy with spectacle,” she wrote.
We’re wondering if these works fall into the ‘awkwardness’ category or the ‘thinking about biases’ category.
It was fun dragging Obama for his bizarre presidential portrait, but I didn’t have a problem w/ it. After looking at other paintings by the artist, Kehinde Wiley, a theme emerges tho: (1) lots of flowery backdrops (2) surprising amount of Black Panthers & decapitated white women. pic.twitter.com/M75x21xQF8
— Jerry Dunleavy IV (@JerryDunleavy) February 12, 2018
The two paintings featuring a beheading come from a collection titled “Judith and Holofernes,” which refers to a story from the Biblical story of Judith beheading the Assyrian general Holofernes.
Wiley has earned fame as an artist who typically uses black subjects in his works, so his use of white women having their heads severed is a curious one.
Jon Levine of The Wrap noted the particular use of a white woman in each portrait.
That Obama artist, Kehinde Wiley, is also know for these fun paintings, which you can file under
“Imagine if this showed a TKTK ” pic.twitter.com/4M0Tg1rZSG
— Jon Levine (@LevineJonathan) February 12, 2018
“In keeping with his long-running style of painting black subjects in poses based on classic imagery from Western art and iconography, Wiley depicted Judith as a powerful black woman,” Levine wrote. “His reasons for keeping Holofernes white and changing the general into a woman remain less clear.”
Obama praised Wiley’s work when he chose the artist, saying, “what I was always struck by when I saw [Wiley’s] portraits was the degree to which they challenged our ideas of power and privilege.”
Imagine had a Trump-appointed artist done anything vaguely like this man’s work in their past, using different races for their subjects. Would they be lauded as ‘challenging our ideas of power and privilege’?
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The only thing missing from those hideous paintings are the spears. Or how about a backdrop of watermelons.
What did you think a bi-racial “BOON” painter would flatter it’s self with ???
Boons be boons…breed boons, separate themselves from thinking black people.
How ’bout join me in requesting a “boon on de’ moon ” ? Must be some federal
monies to support this.
To say the least the artist has limited talent. Surely the obama White House could have found a better black artist than this. #Build the wall– #Obey the law deport them all.—Dan French
Lets face it, blacks are much closer to animals than caucasian people. Don’t believe me, watch NFL football. 75% of players are black and good at attacking an opposing player and celebrating the hit !.
Guess libtards would have a conniption if this guy decided to paint modern day realistic subjects – like young black men shooting each other in one of America’s big cities…..and how come the Black Panthers and their ilk don’t try to stop their own people from killing each other? No, I guess it’s just easier to be racist and fantasize about killing whites.
” . . . et omnia evil . . .!”
This phony black guy, Obama, (white on his mother’s side, 1/2 black 1/2 Arab on his father’s side) makes him one quarter black. He just pretends to be black because he hates his white blood and hates the white race. Mother was white and he was brought up by and educated by white grandparents. He’s a selfish, ungrateful, POS.
He didn’t hate that white girl he took to the prom.
Yes, and if you do some research yo’ll find the both of his maternal grandparents were raging Communists. They moved from Washington statte to Hawaii in 1960 when Obama’s mother was 17 years old. Their close neighbor, Frank Marshall Davis, a card carrying Communist himself and is alleged to be the “real” father of Barry Obama…. Lots of information on these facts out there but not pursued by the media????
Can only assume (?) that our former president (king) also does not like white people, or, any American’s for that matter, unless he and his is profiting from it. Strange pick for an artist, but 8 years is strange enough!!!
Doesn’t ISIS display this kind of ‘art’? What makes this more sad is that our first black president opts for this man to paint his portrait.
Always the head-hunter gene. You can’t take the jungle out of them.