Listen Live
 
Morning Hustle 2024 Cash Grab Graphics (Jan '24)
The Morning Hustle Featured Video
CLOSE
Kehinde Wiley Merch

Source: Brad Ogbanna / Brad Ogbanna

Artist Kehinde Wiley recently launched a limited-edition apparel and merchandise collection featuring a selection of his personal favorite compositions from his archive.

Wiley is most known for his highly naturalistic paintings of African Americans, frequently referencing the work of Old Master paintings. Fans may recognize Wiley’s 2018 portrait of former President Barack Obama.

The famed artist’s latest collection was conceived, curated, and created for those who desire art and color in their lives like his vibrant artwork. The collection is another way to engage with Wiley’s bold and beautiful paintings outside of an art gallery or museum. It also supports Black Rock, the non-profit artist in residence program founded by Wiley in Dakar, Senegal in 2019. The proceeds from the Kehinde Wiley Shop directly support Black Rock’s mission, which is to bring artists, thinkers, and innovators from around the world together and offer a platform for these artists to engage in cross-cultural and multi-disciplinary creative processes. Black Rock aims to build new global discourses about Africa and the African-Diaspora.

The exclusive merchandise collection features basketballs, candles, decks of playing cards, pajamas, postcards, puffer coats, scarves, sweatshirts, and t-shirts. Each item is inspired by one of Wiley’s paintings with designs adapted from his original works of art. All the pieces within the collection are designed by FREAQ, a young up and coming Black and woman run creative agency.

To celebrate Wiley’s new collection, the artist is giving away an AP Print of Dimietrus Study, 2021 as a gift to one lucky winner.

The print features a portrait of a young, Black New Yorker amidst a wreath of pink and blue flora that Wiley originally created in 2008. Returning to the composition, Wiley explains in a statement, “This portrait continues a theme that exists within the selection of prints I have made for Black Rock Senegal. Each addresses the complicated intersection between the masculine and the feminine, the historic and the present. Much like the Black Rock Senegal program, and the artists we welcome each year, these works draw inspiration from a beautiful and terrible past to offer a new optimism for how we can reclaim tradition to reimagine our shared future.”

To enter to win the Dimietrus Study, 2021 print, follow these three steps. Sign up to receive updates on Wiley’s website, follow Kehinde Wiley’s shop and Black Rock’s Instagram pages, and be sure to tag someone you know in the comments of their giveaway post. Good luck!

Congrats, Kehinde Wiley!

Artist Kehinde Wiley Launches Limited Edition Apparel & Merch Collection From His Archived Artwork  was originally published on globalgrind.com

Leave a Reply