Portrait Of Napolean As First Consul 2012

Kehinde Wiley painted this portrait with oils and that crazy busy patterned background. I can see Wiley is thinking about history painting, but giving it a twist, right? I wonder what it was like to create this, with the model in his regular clothes, like he found him on the street. The paint looks pretty smooth, almost like enamel, which makes the bright colours really pop. Look at how the darks next to the whites makes the figure stand out. I'm intrigued by the flowers. They look almost photoshopped on, like stickers. Wiley is really playing with surface here. It's like he's asking what makes a painting a painting. It’s all about remixing art history with contemporary culture, isn't it? Painters are always talking to each other, across time. They build on the past, question it, and make something new. That’s what Wiley's doing here.