The Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco describe Kehinde Wiley:
An Archaeology of Silence as "the senseless deaths of men and women around the world... transformed into a powerful elegy of resistance".
Kehinde Wiley is an American portrait painter based in New York City, who is known for his highly naturalistic paintings of Black people, frequently referencing the work of Old Master paintings.
He was commissioned in 2017 to paint a portrait of former President Barack Obama for the Smithsonian National Portrait Gallery, which has portraits of all previous American presidents.