I went back to my mother's house recently and I saw some of my earlier works as a 15-year-old art student. And a lot of them were reiterations of classic works.

Women are expected to identify gender as a starting point. Ethnicities are expected to identify that as a location. Is it ever possible for the artist to imagine a state of absolute freedom? That was my call to arms.

I grew up in South Central Los Angeles, where people are in cars.

There's nothing shocking inherently about that, given that so much of the way that artists are taught is by copying old master paintings.

It never really understood its own situational luxury. And I think that by and large the privilege of being Kehinde Wiley in the 21st century, making these high-priced luxury goods, traveling the world, pointing at these people, behooves me to have a point of view and to say something about it.

Feudal Europe is over, but it found its way into film culture. It found its way into postmodern painting culture, and we're all here talking about it today. It still lives. I don't believe in ghosts, but these are contemporary ghosts.

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