By Adegboyega Adeleye
Nigerian-American artist Kehinde Wiley has challenged President Donald Trump over the removal of one of his paintings from the US Embassy in the Dominican Republic, asking to buy back the artwork after Trump administration officials mocked it and suggested it could be sold.
Wiley made the request in a letter to Trump, the US Secretary of State Marco Rubio, US Ambassador to the Dominican Republic Leah Campos and Erin Scavino, head of the State Department’s Art in Embassies programme.
The development was reported by The New York Times, which also interviewed Wiley on Monday in his first public comments on the controversy.
Speaking to the newspaper, Wiley said the episode had left him with “deep sadness”, particularly after officials criticised the work and questioned its place at the embassy.
“If the administration is not particularly interested in the work, bring it home. Let me have it,” Wiley told The New York Times. “It was a really successful painting and it is a shame it was so little understood.”
The painting, titled Young Artists After Siamesas 1960, was commissioned through the State Department’s Art in Embassies programme in 2013 and features four young people against a floral backdrop.
It was removed from the US Embassy in Santo Domingo after Campos objected to the artwork. Campos reportedly described it as depicting “a picnic in a park with flowers and some lesbians”, while Scavino described the work as “aesthetically terrifying” in a podcast interview.
Wiley, who painted former US President Barack Obama’s official portrait, said he was particularly puzzled by the description of the work as a lesbian picnic.
“I wasn’t quite sure how they got there. What I have in the painting depicted are four young people coming together within a field of flowers,” he said.
He said he spent two years studying the work of Dominican painters before creating the composition and had four local art students pose for the painting.
Asked about whether the criticism could have been influenced by homophobia, Wiley told The New York Times: “Was it homophobic? It’s possible.”
“To look at the painting and draw those conclusions presupposes a lot. It says a lot about panic and fear, and about creating a specific type of narrative surrounding queer people and people of color,” he said.
The controversy has also drawn attention to Wiley’s connection to Obama. Scavino highlighted the fact that Wiley created Obama’s official portrait when criticising the embassy artwork, while Trump administration officials have broader concerns about what they describe as liberal or “woke” cultural influences.
Wiley acknowledged the significance of his association with Obama, telling the newspaper: “I just happen to be the guy who painted Obama. That is the elephant in the living room.”
The artist questioned why his work had been singled out, asking: “Out of all the artists in the world and the millions of paintings that could have been chosen at this point, why me? Why this moment? Why this painting?”
The State Department has said it was consulting its legal representatives to determine whether the painting could be sold. Officials have also cited separate comments and allegations involving Wiley when defending the decision, although the artist has denied sexual assault allegations.
Wiley said he accepted the original commission because he believed art displayed in US embassies could help build connections between countries.
The removal comes as the Trump administration pursues broader changes to cultural institutions and programmes, including efforts to address what officials describe as liberal bias and unpatriotic narratives.
Wiley is now preparing for his first major US exhibition in about two years.
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