Kehinde Wiley

Last Friday I was able to attend the West loop gallery openings, specifically that tight conglomeration located at Peoria and Monroe. There Rhona Hoffman, and across the street, Three Walls and Western Exhibition opened their doors- as did several other galleries at home in what seems to be converted apartment space of 119 N Peoria.

The Rhona Hoffman gallery began its exhibition of Kehinde Wiley, whose bright canvases and high prices attracted a steady crowd. His images depicting young Indian and Sri Lankan men in contemporary western dress juxtaposed on classical Eastern backdrops were the works I was most drawn to, mainly one that, to me, recalled Nicholas Poussin’s “Eliezer and Rebecca at the Well” (1648).

Wiley’s two figures are positioned in front of what appears to be a well, one figure in a typical Christ pose and the other seemingly receiving his salvation. Also included are several female figures, one with a vase, shadowed and in Islamic attire. His placement of the Islamic temple recalls the architectural element in Poussin’s painting that was meant to mark a point of religious significance. Here however, Wiley’s figures are imposing, their bright lighting and western dress clashing with the reserved attire of the women and the soft background. They stand directly in the foreground of the large canvas, a comment on colonialism and the rapid westernization of Eastern cultures, not excluding the Christianization of the people. The two figures also stand on a cement path separating them from the desert scene and even time period behind them. This could be, perhaps, the notion that these people are now separated from their own culture through space, construction and time.