|
Wiley’s masterpiece, for
example, “Napoleon Leading the Army Over the Alps” (2005) is
based on “Napoleon Crossing the Alps” (1800) by Jacque-Louis
David. In Wiley’s version, the rider is African and wears
modern army fatigues and a bandanna.
Many of his portraits are
from photographs of young men he sees on the street – from
Harlem to the South Central neighborhood of Los Angeles. His
model, dressed in street clothes, strike poses from the
paintings of Renaissance masters such as Tiziano Vecellio
and Giovanni Battista Tiepolo.
Wiley grew up in South
Central Los Angeles in the late 1980’s during the peak of
the crack epidemic and gang wars. His single mother, while
raising six children, encouraged his interest in art by
enrolling him in after-school art classes in some of the
wealthier sections of the city.
In the Huntington Museum,
Library and Gardens, Wiley discovered a world he had not
known to exist – the Old World – particularly the work of 18th
and 18th century masters. “I was blown away by
the technical mastery of western European painters,” he told
The Truth during a recent conversation.
“The social lives and the
ostentatious show of wealth and the powdered wigs,” he
recalled, “had little to do with my way of life, my family
and how I lived. It inspired a desire to want to contend
with those paintings when I had the opportunity. I later
returned to the narrative of that style using black and
brown folks.”
Wiley’s exhibit at the
Toledo Museum of Art will run through May 14, 2017
|
