Kehinde Wiley painted “Three Boys” for his 2013 exhibition The World Stage: Jamaica. The subjects of the painting are three young men the artist found through local street castings, where he visited underground dance halls, Negril beach, and downtown Kingston. The paintings Wiley created for The World Stage: Jamaica reference compositions from classic 17th and 18th century British portraiture and feature background patterns inspired by British textiles. The body of work offers a corrective to the omission of the black figure from art history and specifically comments on the nature of the relationship between the United Kingdom and its former colonial holding. Wiley’s exhibition The World Stage: Jamaica is part of a broader project titled "The World Stage," which presents portraits of Black and brown men and women the artist met in China, Brazil, Nigeria, Haiti, Israel, and India.
Kehinde Wiley is an artist featured in the collection of Phoenix Art Museum.
