“The portraits I create can be difficult to understand from a universal perspective,” These were the concluding remarks of the renowned African-American painter Kehinde Wiley at the end of a long conversation on “A Maze of Power” at the Musée du Quai Branly in Paris. It is indeed complex, eliciting perplexity due to the distinctive style of the works, and stirring controversy due to the inclusion of certain dictatorial figures.

The exhibition comprises eleven large format paintings, featuring a series of portraits of African heads of state, including Ethiopia’s President Sahle-Work Zewde, the only woman figure in the gallery, Ivory Coast’s president, Alassane Ouattara, former president of Guinea, Alpha Condé. The canvases are arranged within a maze, in keeping with the title, black walls, and numerous angles. Each painting occupies its distinct corner.

We progress through the darkness, moving from one brightly lit painting to another. Wiley’s signature style, characterized by detailed and vibrant figurative painting, has been a constant since the early stages of his career.”

The artist was born in 1977 in Los Angeles to an African-American mother and a Nigerian father. His work is entirely devoted to portraying women and men of African descent, whether they are anonymous or famous, whom he paints by taking up the techniques and compositions of European painting from the Renaissance to the nineteenth century, from Van Eyck or Bellini to Reynolds or Ingres. Over the past decade, he has risen to prominence on the international stage. His 2018 portrait of Barack Obama stands out as his most renowned work.

This work played a role in the gestation of the project, of which ‘Maze of Power’ is the culmination. “The notoriety I gained thanks to the portrait of Obama has opened doors for me.” These eleven canvases were not orders from the subjects. The process was quite different – and lengthy. ‘I started in 2012, eleven years in all, a big part of my life but it was worth it.”

The initial step was reaching out to the heads of state and arranging meetings to request their participation in posing for him. ‘I didn’t select them. I wanted every single one of them. Some found the project unsettling, others interesting, and they accepted. “

Ethiopia’s President Sahle-Work Zewde is the only woman figure in the gallery.

The Daniel Templon Gallery (Leading French Gallery) has accomplished “a decisive amount of work” through letters, emails, follow-ups, and appointments. He says he doesn’t know about the number of attempted requests. A dozen responses were positive, but there are only eleven paintings gathered because one of the subjects – King Mohammed VI of Morocco, according to our information – declined to have his portrait displayed.

For all, the method was the same. Wiley compiled a repertoire of portraits drawn from European art history: seated, standing, on horseback, in ornate interiors, under a tree or by the shore, with or without symbols of power, in royal or simpler attire. He talked to the head of states about “a vocabulary of power that each one of the presidents could choose to work with, or choose to ignore.” This leads the artist to assert that it was “both an experiment and a provocation, to see how they position themselves in relation to power and its representation.”

Once their choice was made, all that remained was to carry out the pictorial operation, based on the images captured during the encounter. According to the film shown at the end of the exhibition, Wiley meticulously arranged compositions, accessories, and lighting. Given the size of the canvases and the abundance of details, Wiley, as usual, relied on a team of assistants.

This article originally appeared in Le Monde.