Nigeria's Kehinde Wiley selected to Paint Obama's Official Portrait [Photos]

Barack Obama, the former United State President has chosen Nigerian, New York-based artist Kehinde Wiley to paint his official presidential portrait.


While making the announcement the Smithsonian National Portrait Gallery said Wiley is an exciting choice for the presidential portrait.

The chosen-one whowill have a novel spin on the traditionally formal composition is a hip-hop portraitist known for lush, larger-than-life portraits that overlay black street culture with European classical motifs. He is born to a Nigerian father and an African American mother.

The background of his paintings reference African cloth patterns, snaking through the composition to give further clues on his subject.

Kehinde Wiley art work

Wiley has painted rappers LL Cool J in the style of John Singer Sargent, Ice T as Emperor Napoleon by David, and young African American men in stained glass tableaus, like saints in a cathedral.

More of  K.Wiley's work below.

The Obamas’s portraits will be unveiled at the National Portrait Gallery in Washington, DC next year.