Kehinde Wiley Yellow Wallpaper I Patch

This 3 x 3 in. circular patch features Kehinde Wiley’s 2020 painting Portrait of Savannah Essah. The model, of the same name, is a resident of London. The models for this series were scouted in the East London Neighborhood of Dalston.

The backgrounds used in this series were taken from William Morris wallpaper designs, utilized in conjunction with the acclaimed feminist text, The Yellow Wallpaper, by Charlotte Perkins Gilman. Wiley’s The Yellow Wallpaper exhibition explored the themes of femininity and insanity, as described in the eponymous text, and places the female sitters in the language of the decorative to reconcile the themes of blackness and gender with a beautiful and terrible past, as the models gaze back at the viewers surrounded by Morris’ lavish and enveloping patterning.

Kehinde Wiley is a 2001-02 Studio Museum in Harlem artist in residence.

Dye-sublimation with blue merrowed borders and iron on backing.