A new documentary explores the work of the painters Kehinde Wiley and Amy Sherald, which directly addresses a void of representation—they use their medium to say “yes” to Black humanity when history says “no.” Watch here.
When the filmmaker Christine Turner got a call from the Los Angeles County Museum of Art asking whether she’d be willing to make a film about the painters Kehinde Wiley and Amy Sherald, she didn’t hesitate to say yes. She’d followed the work of both artists for several years, once even going to see Sherald’s work in New York while nine months pregnant.
Wiley speaks of his upbringing in South Central Los Angeles as a time when his artistry blossomed and his family ties deepened, even in the face of poverty.
The artists’ time lines converged when they received life-changing commissions from the National Portrait Gallery to immortalize the Obamas. Wiley’s work tends to frame Black men with metaphorical florals and other patterns. In his portrait of Barack Obama, Wiley added botanical representations of the former President’s past, including flowers from Hawaii, Illinois, and Kenya, which reach out from their leafy curtains to embrace the stoic sitter.
Both portraits memorialize their subjects, though no more than the artists aim to do for every other Black person they depict. What unites their work is that it is a direct address to a void of representation—they use their medium to say “yes” to Black humanity when history says “no.” “The question I’ve been asked often is, ‘Will you ever paint anybody other than Black people?’ My answer is ‘No, I won’t,’ ” Sherald says.
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