The artists ultimately respond to the public.

I think that one of the questions that I asked of myself in later years was to this point of the political directive.

I was surrounded by art by virtue of not only the educational opportunities that my mother's foresight availed me to.

I like to play with the conventions around what we expect of paintings historically. But I also like to play with the conventions that you expect from a Kehinde Wiley painting, too.

There's quite obviously the desire to open the rule sets that allow for inclusion or disclusion. I think that my hope would be that my work set up certain type of precedent, that allowed for great institutions, museums and viewers to see the possibilities of painting culture to be a bit more inclusive.

The artists ultimately respond to the public.

There is no purity with regards to the marketplace and art, I believe.