What came out of that was an intense obsession with status anxiety. So much of these portraits are about fashioning oneself into the image of perfection that ruled the day in the 18th and 19th centuries. It's an antiquated language, but I think we've inherited that language and have forwarded it to its most useful points in the 21st century.

It felt really radically uncomfortable. And I was really not sure at first about releasing that body of work. But then the more I thought about it, the more I thought that that position, that location, is something that's just sort of interesting in its own right, as an experience, as a process. Again, we're talking about this rubric, this set of rules, this grid that I toss on top of different locations globally. This is what came out of Africa.

I had an amazing instructor, Joseph Gotto , who, as a painter, spoke to me as it - he didn't condescend.

Going back to that idea that painting sits still and that we give ourselves over to it over time. There's a difference between living with - imagine if this were sitting in your living room for 15 years. You'd probably understand the contours of it.

I enjoy Chicago as one of the great American cities. When I come here and take a taxi from the airport, I meet a young man from Somalia. I meet a young man from Eritrea who engages with this nation with a sense of hope and a sense of desire. But we also we know that there are other elements of this nation that are toxic.

At age 20 I went to go find my father in Nigeria. And after much toil, I finally figured out exactly where he was. And there's something about seeing your father for the first time - my mother destroyed all pictures of him.

The artists ultimately respond to the public.