Annoyed Radha with her Friends

Kehinde Wiley is a New York-based painter from Los Angeles who has positioned himself within art history’s tradition of portrait painting. Arguably his most notable work would be the portrait of past president Barack Obama, which now resides in the National Portrait Gallery. 

This portrait is from the series titled The World Stage. The artist visited a series of countries, including Sri Lanka (where this was painted). He chose to visit countries that have suffered under colonialism in order to “elevate the marginalized or invisible across a broad range of cities and countries outside of America.”