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 WileyThat should be something that an artist can respond to as well in terms of a painting.
Kehinde WileyI have a really strong suspicion of the romantic nature of portraiture, the idea that you're telling some essential truth about the interior lives of your subject.
Kehinde WileyIn the end I'm in love with it [Western European easel painting]. And that's where a lot of the influence from the work comes from.
Kehinde Wiley