JAI STREET
ISSUE 02
DESHION MCKINLEY AND
JABARI WIMBLEY
Jabari Wimbley and Deshion Mckinley’s Highland Park apartment could have been a church in another life. The tall ceilings hover above stucco walls lined with opulent canvases and the worn tools of an art obsessed life. It’s the kind of space that gives back what you give it, and the pair have clearly been pouring as much creative energy as possible into its depths.
Since separately arriving in L.A. from St. Louis, Wimbley and Mckinley have willed themselves into burgeoning careers in the arts— individually modeling for the likes of Tyler the Creator’s GOLF (Wimbley,) walking for Junya Watanabe in Paris (Mckinley,) and recently, collectively landing their debut L.A. art exhibition, a duo show at Des-Pair Books alongside each other. The pair are well connected and hungry, sitting on the precipice of their own moment— yet uncertainty is still a burden they bear.
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Wimbley, a textile artist who crafts strikingly textured portraits, and Mckinley, a painter who unleashes onto large, abstract canvases, have a sibling-esque artistic relationship. Their work feels eerily connected, as if it was born from two intertwined unconscious minds. However, as of the writing of this piece in the winter of 2024, they’ve really only known each other for around a year. Their relationship thus feels like some predestined act of fate, if you indulge in that kind of magical thinking, which it seems, at least from afar, that Mckinley and Wimbley do. Last Winter, under the tamed Highland Park sun, I sat down with the pair over coffee to interrogate this assumption.
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I think it would make the most sense to start by asking you how the two of you met. Mckinley: The first time we actually met was at a club in Columbia, Missouri and I was dancing on a table.Wimbley: (Laughs) So I had heard about him before from my friend Mary who lived two stories above my apartment at the time, she told me that he was artistic and creative or whatever. And then I saw him dancing on a table at that club and I was like: “who the hell is this guy? Like, who the hell does this guy think he is?” Because in Columbia, Missouri, at least the scene that we were in, there weren’t a lot of Black people. Mckinley: But after that time in the club there was a real gap.Wimbley: Yeah, like we’d hang out occasionally through a friend, but not really. It was very surface level.
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So I assume you guys really became close in L.A.? Wimbley: Yeah. I moved to L.A. in August of 2021. It was funny, because everyone was telling me not to come down here and go to New York, but I just had it set in my mind I was going to L.A.
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Why? Wimbley: I visited with my friends in November of 2020 and just met a ton of people. I was making a lot of art at the time and following and getting followed by a lot of L.A. heads. I was way more into DMing people back then. I would DM anybody just like “I’m coming to L.A. we need to link!” I was just way more rebellious at the time.
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So Deshion, when did you get to L.A.? Did you come around the same time? Mckinley: No, I was mainly traveling to Detroit and New York to skate at the time. I was skating for a skate shop in St. Louis and rode for Converse. I didn’t really plan on leaving St. Louis, I was just floating. But I came out to L.A. to shoot a part, and after my homie Reggie called me and was like “you gotta come back to L.A., just do it.” So I came out here on a one way ticket, and I remember telling mom like “I’m not gonna be home for a while.” I just felt it. I got here on May 29th 2022, and I hit up Jabari like “I’m gonna be in L.A. let’s link.” He didn’t think I was gonna link.
Wimbley: I really didn’t think he was gonna link. Mckinley: So I landed and got offered a job at Stüssy just two days after. I was crashing on Jabari’s couch at the time and literally this dude (Wimbley) happened to work right next door. Our job shared a parking lot. I ubered with him there on the first day. We just started kicking it and I never went back. It was like the universe was playing its cards perfectly. Wimbley: It was crazy— same location, same job. He was crashing at our crib, creating art at our house, helping us pay rent, we’re from the same city, why wouldn’t I let him stay here?
That’s kinda crazy, I really thought you guys were more connected before you came here.Wimbley: A lot of people think that.
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So tell me a bit more about your art practices. When did you guys start making work? Or at least taking it seriously? Mckinley: I always drew as a kid. I’d draw on skateboards and what-not but that was it. I had a teacher in highschool, Mrs. Galbert. It was my last semester in high school and she told me she thought I’d be good at painting, which was funny because I'd failed a few painting classes at that point. But she had me come to her classroom at lunch and paint. She asked me if I was going to college and I was like “hell no,” so she told me to take some community college art classes after I graduated. I did, and I had a professor at Community College give me a Basquiat book. After I saw that shit, it was a wrap. I was so inspired. I stopped taking classes, but I went to school by myself through books and Youtube. That was it. Wimbley: I started latch-hooking through Youtube in the pandemic. I initially started out thinking it was tufting, but I found out later on it was something entirely different. It’s funny because most people associate it with old women. I really had no idea.
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Do you guys have any artists that you consider to be principal influences at the moment? Mckinley: David Evans, Rauschenberg, Frank Bowling, a lot of artists where it’s more than one medium and it’s not just a painting. Rothko, stuff like that.Wimbley: I feel like for a while I didn’t really know what textile people to look at. I honestly don’t look at a lot of textile work for influence. For me it’s more photography— photographers. Because my portraits start with a photo, you know? In the beginning of 2023 I was getting into Robert Maplethorp. A lot of my ideas start with stock photos, so I look through a lot of photo books. Deshion inspires me too, he’s been showing me like Helen Frankenthaler, her abstract work. I’ve been getting into abstract work recently. But there are textile people that I do like a lot, like Eric Mack, Diedrick Brackens, these Black women in Alabama “the Gee’s Bend quilters” who’ve been making textiles for years— passing it down through generations. Still, with Deshion’s work on the wall and him showing me more abstract artists, I've been trying to move toward more abstraction in the backgrounds of my portraits, trying to experiment with more forms, etc.
Do you feel an artistic affiliation to St. Louis, or a broader southern artistic tradition in general? Mckinley: My connection is really with life. I pull from experiences I've had in L.A. and experiences I've had in St. Louis. I wouldn’t be who I am without St. Louis, but I really draw from everything. I don't want to be attached to one thing if that makes sense. Wimbley: I feel like because I started making art later in my life and then moved to L.A I’m caught in between the two. I’m inspired by St. Louis art and L.A art, by I try to draw from everything as well.
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That makes sense, you guys are young and just soaking in everything. I’m sure it also just sucks to have to essentialize your work within a particular narrative, which is such a huge part of what artists in the contemporary zeitgeist have to do. This next question is particularly for you, Deshion, and I guess it’s kind of related. Since you work generally with abstraction, do you feel like there’s an existential or hidden topic/point of focus you’re covering with your pieces at-large, or each particular piece? Mckinley: I think that’s more for the viewer to come to grips with. Like for me, I know what I’m trying to tackle with a piece. That’s why I set it up the way I do. But I think if I give away the objective it defeats the purpose of what I'm doing, because I'm telling you what to think. I don’t even think of myself as an “abstract artist.” I’m an artist at the end of the day. I plan on jumping out of a lot of boxes in that regard soon. I’m inspired by all types of art— I just like to mold everything together. You can label it whatever you feel from it. I just don’t have the urge to essentialize anything right now.
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How’d you guys end up getting the show at Des-Pair? Did you know the people there already? Mckinley: I was just at Canyon Coffee in Echo Park and ran into Addison from Des-Pair and we kept coming back. Shoutout Addison. Wimbley: Yeah, shoutout Addison. Mckinley: Her and everybody at Des-Pair are cool people in general. She’s really a great person. She just reached out to me and asked us if we wanted to do a show. And we just named it our names, like “just pop out.” And it was great. It went really well. Thank you to everyone who came.
Yeah, it was really cool to see. And Jabari, your dad popped out! It was sick to meet him and his college buddy. He was really excited.
Wimbley: (Laughs) Yeah. My dad had never been to L.A. before, and he had heard so much about all of my friends. So it was a big deal for him to meet Deshion and all of my friends and see that show. It was really special. I feel really privileged to have been in that space with Deshion. Mckinley: Yeah, that was sick. A duo with my best friend, my brother. Nothing’s better man.
It’s special that it just kind of came together naturally. Like you live together, your work goes well together…Wimbley: And there wasn’t a theme, which I think would have put more pressure on it. He (Mckinley) pitched the idea of it being just our names. You know he has one wall and I have one wall. It’s just like if you walked into our house. It was a great turnout and I feel like it was well deserved. I’ve seen the work he puts in during the day-to-day, even the work he put in just by moving to L.A. and coming into our space. I hadn’t made work for seven months and he came off the plane in the first two weeks just wanting to paint. I was in a super bad headspace just not feeling fulfilled as an artist, not feeling like I knew where I fit in as a textile artist. He pushed me to want to continue making textile work after I learned that textile work wasn’t as lucrative— he pushed me to be a person who’s at the forefront of latch-hooking. Mckinley: His work is too good to just stop. Like while you’re in front of me, I don’t care if this sounds selfish, I'm not gonna let you just stop. Like go stop in front of the other homies or whatever. His work is good work. If it takes a long time for it to be digested, that’s good. I told him he’d be an absolute idiot to just stop now.
I totally agree man, I totally agree.
