Kehinde Wiley

In class, we talked about baroque and rococo paintings, specifically those of Kehinde Wiley. Kehinde Wiley's known for his portraits of brown skinned people, specifically ones that parody those of white people. He simply replaces the white people in the paintings with brown skinned people, adding on some decorative patterns in the background. I never would have thought that this seemingly small replacement of skin color would be so shocking. Not even just me, multiple others in my class were also taken aback by the fact there was a black person in place of a white one. All the years of subtle racial stereotypes have slowly integrated in to our society's mindset, so that a small change in color appears so unnatural. He is also well known for his portraits where he just has a brown skinned person, male or female, in a heroic stance. While these works of art do not necessarily imitate a portrait with white people in them, they still are shocking as we subconsciously picture the hero to be a white male. Going beyond just a brown skinned male in power, he also has women in positions of power as well. It is kinda sad to see that these portraits have such a big wow factor, as I feel we should be beyond these trifle characteristics. These portraits go to show how strongly our society has these stereotypes embedded in their daily lives, that a simple change in skin color or gender could be so shocking.