In the Studio Museum in Harlem, when I was dealing with that community and dealing with my peers in the streets, it allowed for me to get outside of Yale, to get outside of art-speak, and to really think about art as a material practice that has very useful and pragmatic material precedent.
Kehinde WileyFor me, I wanted to create something that's much more driven by a type of selfishness, a type of decadence.
Kehinde WileyThe work that I wanted to create wasn't being done then. I was too much concerned about fellow students, professors, institutional style [in Yale].
Kehinde WileyIn some way they are all self-portraits, but I think I know what you mean by asking this - I would say, it is too idealistic to paint yourself.
Kehinde WileyI had no idea about where I was going. I had no sense of art as anything other than a problem to be fixed, you know, an itch to be scratched. I was in that studio trying my best to feel content with myself. I had, like, a stipend. I had a place to sleep. I had a studio to work in. I had nothing else to think about, you know. And that's - that was a huge luxury in New York City.
Kehinde Wiley