At the same time I really enjoy painting flesh.

I would imagine that what you try to do is to - is to be as sensitive to the environment that surrounds you as possible. As you see, my work has become increasingly global. My presence in the world has become increasingly global.

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

When the fat lady comes out to sing, we don't know how she feels that day. We don't know if she's suffering from a cold or is mourning a death or falling in love. We don't know. But so all of that chance is the performance.

I think that the Kehinde Wiley brand is something that I'm working towards expanding and to inclusion.

For example, in one of my last exhibitions I had a 50-foot massive painting with I think perhaps a hundred thousand hand-painted small flowers. This was the Christ painting [The Dead Christ in the Tomb, 2008] in my Down exhibition [2008]. Now, I simply can't spend eight hours a day painting small, identical flowers. And so I've got a team that allows me to have these grand, sweeping statements.

There were certain expectations that were assumed of me as a young black American 20th-century - then 20th-century artist.