There's something really cool about taking oily coloured paste and pushing it around with these hairy sticks and making something that looks like you. That's the magic of painting.
Kehinde WileyRead
What I try to do is defy expectations in terms of boundaries, whether it is high or low art, pop culture, or fine-art culture. My work is about reconciling myriad cultural influences and bringing them into one picture.
Interpretation
What this quote means
The quote expresses a desire to challenge artistic boundaries and blend various cultural influences into a cohesive work.
Kehinde Wiley emphasizes his approach to art as a means of defying traditional classifications, whether they pertain to high art versus pop culture or preconceived notions of what art should be. He seeks to create pieces that celebrate diversity by merging various cultural influences, thereby encouraging viewers to reconsider their expectations and the definitions of art itself.
Themes
ArtCultural InfluencesExpectationsBoundariesCreativity
In practice
Example use cases
This quote can be used in an art exhibition to encourage attendees to appreciate the diversity of influences in contemporary art.
More from Kehinde Wiley
All quotes →This idea that my work is about hip-hop is a little reductive. What I'm interested in is the performance of masculinity, the performance of ethnicity, and how they intermingle across cultures.
Kehinde WileyRead
What is portraiture? It's choice. It's the ability to position your body in the world for the world to celebrate you on your own terms.
Kehinde WileyRead
The ability to be the first African-American painter to paint the first African-American president of the United States is absolutely overwhelming. It doesn't get any better than that.
Kehinde WileyRead
Painting is about the world that we live in. Black men live in the world. My choice is to include them.
Kehinde WileyRead
There is something that always will be true about painting and sculpture - that in order to really get it, you have to show up. That is something that is both sad and kind of beautiful about it. It remains analog. It remains special and irreducible.
Kehinde WileyRead
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