I'd like to walk that fine line between the authentic artist self and the manufactured artist self. I'd like to exist outside of a set of expectations or assumptions about what the Kehinde Wiley brand is. And I'd like to walk towards something that's a bit more unpredictable, human.

I think it's really useful to create parameters. The term you use can be forwarded into something more like a grid, a rubric, a system that you apply to all environments, and in so doing you create a situation in which you can locate local color, local differences within new environments.

I try to create a place of disorientation.

I've met others [people] who simply responded to me, "You're Kehinde Wiley. I know your work. I saw it at the Brooklyn Museum [Brooklyn, NY] And I'd be honored to be in your work."

The expectations of the viewer are what you're asking about. And the expectations of the viewer are manifold. However, they are very fixed, given who I am in the world. People have certain expectations of me as an artist.

I believe the artist is capable of contributing to the broader evolution of culture in all of its dimensions.

It was probably one of the things that gave me a sense of possibility and allowed for me to see beyond the small community that I existed within. You know, I was making friends with young Soviet kids. this is during perestroika. You know, there's bread lines and vodka lines. The entire social structure of what was then the Soviet Union was radically different from what we know today.