Pushkin. This is talk easy. I'm San by a renowned artist Kehinde Wiley.

Through painting, sculpture, and video, Wiley's portraits are often triumphant celebrations of the black and brown people he's met throughout the world.

In a recent New Yorker profile, writer Julian Lucas explains that this all began back in the early 2000s when Wiley, fresh out of college, became

known for transfiguring hip-hop style into the idiom of the old masters.

Since then, the LA.A. born painter, who grew up in South Central,

has become something of a global institution.

He's held solo exhibitions throughout the United States and internationally, and his works are included in the collections of over 50 public institutions.

In 2018, Wiley became the first African American artist to paint an official US presidential portrait

for the Smithsonian National Portrait Gallery. Former President Barack Obama

selected Wiley for this honor.

The next year in 2019, Wiley founded Black Rock Senegal,

a multi-disciplinary artist and residence program

that invites creators to live and work and to Carr, which is also where Wiley splits his time between Beijing and New York.

But most recently, Kehende found himself in the city of Los Angeles, where his new exhibition

titled Colorful Realm has just opened at the Roberts Projects.

It's there at the gallery that Wiley and I sat down to talk.

We discussed the Japanese influence on his latest paintings,

the profound impact of artist Carrie James Marshall,

Kehende's earliest work at the Studio Museum in Harlem,

painting the former president, and a whole lot more.

At a couple points in this conversation, we make specific reference to paintings.

If you'd like to see the works being described,

...