The Apostle Peter 2006

Kehinde Wiley made "The Apostle Peter" with oil on canvas, and I can only imagine him wrestling with this wild combination of street style and old master portraiture. The way he throws this figure into high relief against that wallpaper—it's an amazing clash. It's almost too much, right? But somehow, all that detail comes together. I wonder if Wiley thinks of those floral patterns as a kind of abstraction, an all-over field, just like the kind of thing I love to do. I’m guessing he’s trying to build up a surface that’s visually exciting and layered with meanings, like the way he covers his figure's jeans with painted flowers. I mean, a figure holding a giant key?! It’s a bold, symbolic gesture—a key to what, though? You see echoes of other painters in his work and perhaps he sees them too. Painting really is an ongoing conversation across time.