Getting the Picture

By Jenny Hartman, Fiorella Valdesolo

Known for his portrait of Barack Obama, Kehinde Wiley has long repurposed European painting traditions to explore contemporary Black culture. For his latest body of work, at L.A.’s Roberts Projects through April 8, he looked to 18th-century Japanese artist Itō Jakuchū’s nature paintings, surrounding his subjects with delicate flora and fauna. The show, Colorful Realm, inaugurates the gallery’s new Mid-Wilshire space. More of Wiley’s canvases and sculptures will be on view at San Francisco’s de Young Museum from March 18 in Kehinde Wiley: An Archaeology of Silence.