The conference ended last night, but I decided to spend an extra day in Houston. My friend Ann lives here, and I hadn’t seen her in a while. Getting to Houston from Galveston was interesting. Last night there were massive thunderstorms with high winds. Many areas of Houston lost power and this morning many streetlights were out. I saw downed trees, lots of leaves and debris, and work crews making repairs.
When Ann and I were planning my visit, she mentioned that the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston had a major exhibition of Kehinde Wilde paintings and sculpture. He’s a favorite contemporary artist of mine. While I’ve seen many of his paintings, I’d never seen his sculpture. In fact, I had no idea he sculpted.
Wiley is best known for his portraits of people of color that riff upon Old Master paintings, in some ways turning history upside down. He also painted Barack Obama’s official White House portrait.
What fascinates me about his work, apart from his obvious talent, is his attention to detail. Both in the paintings and sculpture, every button, crease, seam, shoelace, braid, and even more minute details are rendered perfectly. You might think that would make the paintings look like photos, but his backgrounds are fanciful, taking the portraits away from photorealism. Even more importantly, the expressions on his subjects’ faces are exquisite; you almost know what they are thinking. The work in this show ranged from small to double or even triple life sized.
When we left the museum, Ann took me for a tour of the museum district and surrounding neighborhoods. I had no idea Houston is so lush or that there are gorgeous tree canopies along many streets.
We hung out at her apartment catching up, then went for a wonderful Tex-Mex meal.