Saint John The Baptist In The Wilderness 2013

Kehinde Wiley made this painting, *Saint John The Baptist In The Wilderness*, riffing on historical portraiture, and it's pretty amazing. Imagine the kind of layering, decision-making, and sheer physical work involved in a piece like this! Wiley’s paintings usually have these really gorgeous, decorative backgrounds, and then these figures that pop out in high contrast. It's like he's saying, "Hey, let's rethink who gets to be in these fancy paintings." I wonder what it was like for him to make this work. Look at the way the figure meets the floral pattern! It’s not just decoration – it’s like the patterns are alive, climbing all over the figure, almost erasing the boundaries between subject and background. He’s playing with ideas about identity, visibility, and representation. It’s like he’s in a conversation with all the old masters. Painting is a beautiful thing because it’s like one big, long, never-ending conversation!