Kehinde Wiley

I started making work that I assumed would be far too garish, far too decadent, far too black for the world to…

— Kehinde Wiley

I think that an obsession with art history gave rise to the work.

— Kehinde Wiley

For me, I wanted to create something that's much more driven by a type of selfishness, a type of decadence.

— Kehinde Wiley

I have a lot of problems with Western European easel painting.

— Kehinde Wiley

The expectations of the viewer are what you're asking about. And the expectations of the viewer are manifold. However, they are very…

— Kehinde Wiley

What we have now is a communication ability. We have the ability to see working ideas that are going on in the…

— Kehinde Wiley

The games I'm playing have much more to do with using the language of power and the vocabulary of power to construct…

— Kehinde Wiley

I have been painting models with black and brown skin only for the past years. So, I did already have this experience,…

— Kehinde Wiley

My sexuality is not black and white. I'm a gay man who has occasionally drifted. I am not bi. I've had perfectly…

— Kehinde Wiley

Is it the responsibility of the colored artist or the ethnic artist to create works that are designed to exist in opposition…

— Kehinde Wiley

I've had moments where I've met people who were complete, like, idiots, who could not understand visual culture to save their lives.

— Kehinde Wiley

You have to be careful about over-politicizing the utterances of people of colour because, oftentimes, there's poetry that seeks to go beyond…

— Kehinde Wiley

The language of the heroic is something that has evolved over time.

— Kehinde Wiley

I think it's possible to allow an artist to go beyond his borders and play.

— Kehinde Wiley

My assistants generally do all the flowers and all of the decorative work. I concentrate on the figure.

— Kehinde Wiley

Portraits are about revealing aspects of an individual.

— Kehinde Wiley

I have been painting white people for much longer in my life than I have done for colored people.

— Kehinde Wiley

I began working within the streets of Harlem, where, after graduating from Yale [University, New Haven, CT], I became the artist in…

— Kehinde Wiley

The reality of Barack Obama being the president of the United States - quite possibly the most powerful nation in the world…

— Kehinde Wiley

While I can hire out the portrait, I don't, because it's just - that's where I shine. You know, that's my blood…

— Kehinde Wiley

In my work, I want to create an understanding, not about what a painting looks like but about what a painting says.

— Kehinde Wiley

That's what I think my job in the world has been, is to sort of try to sit silently a bit and…

— Kehinde Wiley

My paintings at their best take that vocabulary and attempt to transpose that into a form that gives respect not only to…

— Kehinde Wiley

One of the things that has inspired me so much is knowing that I felt like I could never measure up.

— Kehinde Wiley

In some way they are all self-portraits, but I think I know what you mean by asking this - I would say,…

— Kehinde Wiley