So much of my work is defined by the difference between the figure in the foreground and the background. Very early in my career, I asked myself, "What is that difference?" I started looking at the way that a figure in the foreground works in eighteenth- and nineteenth-century European paintings and saw how much has to do with what the figure owns or possesses. I wanted to break away from that sense in which there's the house, the wife, and the cattle, all depicted in equal measure behind the sitter.
Kehinde WileyYou'll find that street casting in America is a lot different than street casting in different nations.
Kehinde WileyYou know, one of my - one of my best and, I think, most enlightening moments was when I was contacted by Michael Jackson. And he requested that I paint his portrait.
Kehinde WileyThat should be something that an artist can respond to as well in terms of a painting.
Kehinde WileyOn the contrary, my desire is that the viewer sees the background coming forward in the lower portion of the canvas, fighting for space, demanding presence.
Kehinde WileyThat's partly the success of my work-the ability to have a young black girl walk into the Brooklyn Museum and see paintings she recognizes not because of their art or historical influence but because of their inflection, in terms of colors, their specificity and presence.
Kehinde WileyI pay my models to work with me, so there becomes this weird sort of economic bartering thing, which made me feel really sort of uncomfortable, almost as though you were buying into a situation - which, again, is another way of looking at those paintings. The body language in those paintings is a lot more stiff.
Kehinde Wiley