Jupiter And Thetis 2014

Kehinde Wiley made "Jupiter and Thetis" using oil paint, and right away you notice the intense, almost overwhelming detail, especially in that wallpaper-like background, a riot of pattern. It's like he's saying, “more is more!” Wiley layers meaning through the clash of textures: the flat, decorative backdrop against the figures rendered with a Renaissance-like attention to volume. Look at the woman sitting. Her skin glows, burnished by light and shadow, but then these looping green vines crawling all over her legs, almost obscuring them. That contrast, that push-and-pull, is what I find so compelling, and those vines are like a visual echo of the floral pattern that surrounds the figures. It reminds me of Chris Ofili, who also mixes the decorative with the deeply personal and political. Wiley’s work refuses to be pinned down – it’s an ongoing conversation about beauty, power, and representation.