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."

I think that an obsession with art history gave rise to the work.

I guess art is in the eye of the beholder.

For me, I wanted to create something that's much more driven by a type of selfishness, a type of decadence.

A realization and a dissection of the canon gave rise to the work. But there's also a sneaking suspicion of the canon.

After high school I went to the San Francisco Art Institute, and I began a formalized art education where we went through the history of art but we also went through the art of my contemporaries.

[My parents] met in university back in the '70s. And I didn't grow up with my father. He - they separated before I was born.