![]() He says, “allowing us to look at people that are often invisible in a different light.” Through his art, Wiley bestows the honor and symbols that have traditionally been reserved for the upper class upon everyday people. “Portraits are about revealing aspects of an individual,” says Wiley. In their portraits, Sherald and Wiley both upend notions of what it means to hold power, particularly as a person of color in America. Wiley, 41, is known for larger-than-life riffs on Western art. Sherald, 44, typically paints subjects in ordinary clothes, holding everyday poses, but their features are striking, their skin tones are rendered in shades of gray, with pops of color throughout the canvas. Both artists’ work shows a commitment to making portraits of people who have traditionally been marginalized. The Obamas interviewed a few at the White House, but ultimately decided on the two contemporary portraitists with whom they each felt a connection. The Obamas chose Wiley and Sherald after considering portfolios of some 20 artists. It’s “indicative of the values of his presidency,” she says, “And the notion of a democracy that works from the bottom up instead of from the top down.” The way the president appears to lean toward the viewer, his collar unbuttoned, exudes a level of openness not seen in some of the other portraits, says Taína Caragol, who curated the Wiley commission for the Portrait Gallery. These botanicals are a challenge to viewers to grapple with the improbability of Obama’s rise. Pikake, or Arabian jasmine, thrives in Hawaii, where the President spent much of his youth. Chrysanthemums are the official flower of the city of Chicago, where Obama met his wife Michelle and started both his family and political career. African blue lilies are a nod to Obama’s father’s home country of Kenya. Wiley stripped away the trappings of office in order to depict the former President’s life journey. “The challenge here was to allow certain aspects of Barack Obama’s power and respectability to be a given so that we could move forward with a different type of narrative.” It is a vocabulary that has been fixed,” Wiley tells TIME. “The way we think about a presidential portrait is one that is imbued with dignity from the outset. ![]() But where Gilbert Stuart flirts with the splendors of the office of the President, Wiley alludes to the story of the man himself. Like the historic Lansdowne painting of Washington, Obama’s portrait is rife with symbolism. ![]() The exhibit is curated in chronological order, but depending on how you enter, it opens with either George Washington or Obama.
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