TJC Lifestyle: Kehinde Wiley at the Brooklyn Museum

by: Neki Bosh

One of the biggest exhibitions at the Brooklyn Museum this winter opened today. Kehinde Wiley is known for his paintings which are modeled after 18th and 19th century French and British portraits and feature young black men and women form the streets of Harlem, Brooklyn and Queens. His latest project, Kehnide Wiley: An Economy of Grace, featured female subjects in haute-couture gowns.

For the February edition of New York, Wiley updated some of his paintings with six of the same women, styled in gowns from the Row, Chloé , Erdem, Rodarte and others. The shoot was staged as his paintings and was what he called, “intelligent, wasteful acts of spending.” The women all hail from a variety of backgrounds, but was portrayed in this amazing shoot as collective genius. Ena Johnson (25 – nursing degree student), Candice Stevens (30 – Department of Correction employee), Shantavia Beale (23 – mother of two), and Khalidiah Asante (28 – an art teacher) are all examples of the beauty that is sometimes hidden in everyday people. For more information about the exhibit, click here. Below are the beautiful pictures from the New York photo shoot. Enjoy! ~ xxxooo