Unlike the background in many of the paintings that I was inspired by or paintings that I borrowed poses from - the great European paintings of the past - the background in my work does not play a passive role.
Kehinde WileyI went back to my mother's house recently and I saw some of my earlier works as a 15-year-old art student. And a lot of them were reiterations of classic works.
Kehinde WileyI noticed that the work of my non - I noticed that the work of my friends who were white and male, specifically, existed in a type of freedom that was not bound by certain political questions and assumptions and locations.
Kehinde WileyThe work that I wanted to create wasn't being done then. I was too much concerned about fellow students, professors, institutional style [in Yale].
Kehinde WileyPainting is situational. And my particular situation exists within gender, race, class, sexuality, nation.
Kehinde WileyLet's talk about the artist's desire to go beyond the pictorial or the representational and the desire to create the abstract - the idea that painting can go beyond what is seen. What we found is that, increasingly, painting became about paint, its own material truth. When I'm talking about the way that we look at others and the way that we see ourselves increasingly, looking at others becomes its own material truth.
Kehinde Wiley