Tosin Otegbole 2008

Kehinde Wiley made this portrait, “Tosin Otegbole,” by layering a realistic figure against a decorative background. The colour is pretty wild, right? The orange just pops! Up close, you can see that the texture on the figure's skin is built with thin, smooth glazes. The paint is so smooth you can almost feel it. Then there's the background, a flat, graphic design that feels totally different. Look at the way the flowers are rendered – kind of stiff and patterned, like wallpaper. It almost flattens the figure against the picture plane. Wiley plays with this tension between the real and the artificial, the historical and the contemporary, in a way that makes you think about what a portrait even means today. It reminds me of someone like David Hockney, who was also obsessed with portraiture. Wiley keeps that conversation going but with a completely fresh perspective.