I was 12 in 1989 during perestroika, when my mother found a program that sent me to Russia to study art in the forests outside of Leningrad.

He's a great - he's a great professor. He retired recently, but.But Peter Halley as well.

My peers at the time: you know, young black kids from off the streets of Harlem, having these conversations with me in my small, dirty little studio up in Harlem.

My mother's from Texas. Small town outside of Waco called Downsville. And my father's from Nigeria. And so I guess I'm properly African-American.

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.

What it is is a type of editorialization, you know? This is self-portraiture. This is what you think about the world we live in.

I'm fully capable of multitasking certain conceptual concerns within the work.