Notes on Blue Silk Scarf by Kehinde Wiley

This limited edition silk twill scarf features Kehinde Wiley’s 2021 painting titled, Portrait of Aissatou Dialo Gueye II, which is from the body of work that Kehinde developed during the period of COVID-19 in 2020. Kehinde spent this time in quarantine at Black Rock Sénégal, the artist compound and residency program he founded in 2019 on the coast of Dakar, Sénégal. In the absence of any ability to follow his traditional street-casting methods which enable him to find models at random on the streets of New York and many other international cities around the world, Kehinde decided to focus on the people and friends of people immediately surrounding him in Dakar. As Kehinde describes them, "What follows are a series of portraits that I might consider friends and family of Black Rock."

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Aissatou Dialo Gueye works at Black Rock Sénégal. She is posed here wearing a dress by Senegalese designer Sarah Diouf, who is also a good friend and collaborator of Black Rock. The background pattern, which features flowering fruit trees and vines, references a British textile originally produced by Liberty and Co. in London at the turn of the 20th century. 

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Proceeds from your purchase support the artist in residence program Black Rock Sénégal, founded by Wiley in 2019.