Kehinde Wiley

Little Dancer Aged Fourteen is a sculpture created in 1881 by Edgar Degas. The model of the sculpture is Marie Van Goerhem, a daughter of a Belgian Laundress and tailor. Degas uses Marie Van Goerhem to depict an activity that the fourteen-year-old girl participates which is ballet. The sculpture appears to be bronze and tinted with cotton skirt and a white ribbon in the back of her hair. The little girl’s head is tilted upward with her shoulders pulled back. Degas is a French artist who…

As a self-proclaimed outsider, I have always been deeply fascinated with others who were raised in a culture other than the nation of their birth. I believe my status as a Nigerian born immigrant who has spent majority of life in the U.S. makes me a third culture kid (individuals raised in cultures other than his or her parents or the nation of birth), and I have struggled with coming to terms with this status for some time. While struggling with my own identity, I often wonder how others who…