You Are Cordially Invited
To the Fort River School
6th Grade
“Art Opening”
Of
Portrait & Self-Portrait Paintings
Drop in and view the work on
Tuesday, December 9th
anytime from 3:30-6:30 pm.
6th grade art students at Fort River Elementary School recently created portraits of themselves based on artist Kehinde Wiley's integration of young African-American hip-hop artists into traditional portraits.
Fort River Art Teacher Teri Magner was in Washington, DC over the summer where she received a private showing of Wiley's exhibit at the National Portrait Gallery from her former Fort River student Brooke Steinhauser, then a Smithsonian gallery intern. When Magner saw it, she knew it was something her students would both invest in and relate to.
Wiley, a New York based artist, is known for his paintings of contemporary urban African-American men in poses taken from famous historical paintings. He chooses paintings for his subjects that best represent the per formative and personal aspects of their character. In a well known piece, he portrayed Ice T through Napoleon's portrait on the throne for the VH1 Hip Hop Honors.
Inspired, Mrs. Magner found 200 portraits from traditional to contemporary, ensuring each of her 82 sixth grade students would find one that was a good fit. The students used themselves in the portraits instead of a contemporary artist, painting on canvas with acrylic. In order to minimize the intimidation of painting one's face and instead keep the focus on recreating the background, they printed photos of themselves from the computer and glued them onto the canvas. The resulting piece reflects each student’s canvas painting with their face integrated, framed with a copy of the original portrait they chose.
Drop by, enjoy the art, have a snack, and speak with some of the artists!
