Thomas Armory I 2006

Kehinde Wiley painted this portrait, Thomas Armory I, with oil on canvas. The painting style strikes me, it's like he's remixing old master portraiture with the everyday, and then cranking up the volume with those vibrant colors. Look at how he uses color and pattern, those flat decorative motifs are right up against the super-smooth realism of the figure, and that lime green hoodie with the red floral design. The way Wiley handles the paint is interesting, the face is rendered with such detail and smoothness, but then there's this flatness everywhere else. It's like he's saying, "Hey, I can do both, but which one is more real?" Wiley reminds me a bit of someone like David Hockney, in how he flattens and brightens up the world. But Wiley's got his own thing going on, it is like he's placing young Black men in these traditional settings, it's like he's saying, "We belong here too." And that’s a pretty powerful statement.