Process

Kehinde Wiley described painting The World Stage: Africa: Lagos-Dakar series in a 2008 New Yorker article:

“The people, in general, were different physically—a lot taller, darker,” he said. “I taught myself to paint African-Americans, mostly people roughly my skin tone.” He pinched a bicep. “But there you’re using blues instead of browns. I … didn’t have the luminosity I’m obsessed with, that light popping off bodies, that brings a certain hopefulness to something.”