ANATOMY
“La Source” is
part of a series of
paintings Wiley
did called The
World Stage: Haiti
— the New York-
based artist has
also done World
Stage series in Sri
Lanka, Jamaica,
Brazil, Lagos and
Dakar, France,
China and Israel.
OF A PAINTING
A C L O S E R L O O K AT K E H I N D E W I L E Y ’ S ‘ L A S O U R C E ’
By Alex V. Cipolle
Whereas Ingres’ “La Source”
features a white woman
standing in a stream with a
ceramic pitcher flowing with
water — which many art histo-
rians say is symbolic for fertil-
ity and harmony between man
and nature — Wiley has posed
his model with a wicker basket,
clearly unable to hold liquid.
What is Wiley saying here?
COLLECTION OF ARLENE AND HAROLD SCHNITZER
Wiley paints on a large
scale, and “La Source” is no
exception. The painting is
84 by 55 inches — that’s 7
feet tall — so if, say, LeBron
James stood next to it, he
would still be 4 inches shorter
than the canvas.
While Wiley’s work appears
fantastically original, most of
his paintings directly reference
famous masterpieces from the
Western art canon, typically
from the major colonial
powers such as France, Spain
and England. “La Source”
is a reimagining of the oil
painting of the same name
completed in 1856 by French
neoclassical painter Jean-
Auguste-Dominique Ingres.
Wiley probably chose the work
of Ingres because the French
colonized the Haitian side of
the island of Hispaniola (the
other half is the Dominican
Republic) in the 17th century.
WHAT: A 2014 oil painting
featured in the exhibit
Between the World and Me:
African American Artists
Respond to Ta-Nehisi
Coates
WHEN: Now through
March 5, 2017
WHERE: In the Jordan
Schnitzer Museum of Art’s
Artist Project Space on the
first floor near the main
entrance
One of distinctive markers of a Wiley painting is the Baroque-like backgrounds of flora,
creating an intricate wallpaper effect. In his artist statement for the Haiti series, Wiley
says: “The backgrounds of the paintings incorporate images of vegetation found on Haiti
such as okra, brought first to the island from Africa, and sugarcane, a food product that
was broadly exploited as a cash crop during slavery.” However, in this specific painting,
the plants don’t seem to be okra or sugarcane. EW contacted members of Oregon State
University Extension Service’s Master Gardener program and the OSU Department of
Horticulture, but the majority responded that the painted flora are most likely a stylized
amalgamation of different plants; some offered that the plants could be anything from
blue aster, blue lotus, blue marguerite or blue hibiscus (hibiscus is Haiti’s national flower).
Upon traveling to Haiti for
the series, Wiley put a call
out over the radio for models,
tapping into the country’s long
tradition of beauty pageants.
The female subject here is
one of hundreds of Haitians
who applied to pose for the
artist. In a mini-documentary
about the trip, Wiley says he
went to uncover the difference
between the Caribbean
nation’s “perceived culture
and lived culture,” wanting to
highlight a more triumphant
narrative than the tragic one
the media usually focuses on
— poverty and the aftermath
of the 2010 hurricane. While
we don’t know the woman’s
name, you can see her
audition and pose for Wiley’s
photographer in the video
(watch it at bit.ly/2dp8u4q).
This is a linen canvas (made
from flax), Wiley’s material
of choice. Pricier than cotton
canvases, linen canvases
are more durable and tend
to warp less under layers of
paint over time, thus making it
a better choice for large-scale
paintings.
eugeneweekly.com • October 6 , 2016
13