Nigerian-American artist, Kehinde Wiley, has been commissioned by Barack Obama to paint his official presidential portrait, the Smithsonian National Portrait Gallery confirmed.
Wiley had previously expressed his keenness to paint Obama before his election in 2008. In 2012, he also restated his interest to the BBC in an interview.
“I think it would be really interesting to paint Obama. I’ve done several studies in the past, I’ve sort of worked out different strategies about how that would be, but it’s a very curious possibility. We’ll see where that goes.”
Wiley is best known for his naturalistic, above life-size paintings of African Americans.
“[He] frequently portrayed young African American men wearing the latest in hip-hop street fashion. His rich, highly saturated color palette and his use of decorative patterns complement his realistic, yet expressive, likenesses. The theatrical poses and props Wiley assigns to his subjects make references to iconic portraits of powerful figures by Western artists.” The National Portrait Gallery wrote of his work.
He has created portraits of Notorious B.I.G., LL Cool J, Big Daddy Kane, Ice T, Grandmaster Flash and the Furious Five and Michael Jackson, and many others.
The portrait will be unveiled at the National Portrait Gallery in 2018 alongside that of Michelle Obama (commissioned to Amy Sherald, another African American painter).
The director of the National Portrait Gallery, Kim Sajet, said the gallery were delighted that Wiley and Sajet agreed to paint the official portraits of the former president and the first lady.
“Both have achieved enormous success as artists, but even more, they make art that reflects the power and potential of portraiture in the 21st century.”
View his recent exhibition, A New Republic below: