A groundbreaking artist feted by the Obama White House has hit back at ‘unhinged’ allegations of sexual assault with screenshots of friendly messages from his accuser sent after the alleged attack.
Kehinde Wiley, whose portrait of the former president sits in the Smithsonian, was accused last month of a ‘severe and violent’ sexual assault in 2021 by Ghanaian artist Joseph Awuah-Darko.
Black Lives Matter co-founder Derrick Ingram has also stepped forward with allegations that he was raped during an abusive four-month relationship with Wiley in 2021.
But the artist called the claims ‘baseless and defamatory’ as he posted messages from Awuah-Darko on Instagram.
‘What is motivating these individuals to hurl these disgusting allegations? Money? Fame? An insatiable need for attention? Who knows?’ he wrote.
Acclaimed artist Kehinde Wiley has angrily denied allegations of sexual assault
Ghanaian artist Joseph Awuah-Darko claims Wiley attacked him after a dinner in 2021
‘My accusers wanted far more than I was willing to give them. Does that give them the right to commit character assassination? No it does not.’
The LA-born artist met his first accuser in June 2021 at a dinner held in his honor by Ghana’s Creative Art Council in Accra.
Awuah-Darko claimed Wiley repeatedly grabbed his buttocks in a ‘categorically unwelcomed and unprovoked’ before a more serious assault later than night.
‘It almost destroyed me,’ Awuah-Darko wrote.
Wiley admitted a ‘consensual’ encounter and said it marked ‘the beginning of years of Joseph aggressively pursuing a relationship with me’.
‘Since our first encounter in 2021 he has consistently sent me messages via phone and Instagram professing his love for me, my talent and my work,’ he wrote.
‘He has mentioned me on his Instagram stories more than 30 times.
‘Before he made these unhinged false claims and deleted thousands of Instagram posts that didn’t fit his narrative, he celebrated our friendship on his feed.’
Wiley posted messages from Awuah-Darko suggesting they meet and said his accuser flew 4,000 miles from London to Nigeria to attend his birthday party eight months after the alleged assault.
‘We live in a world where a single social media post can destroy someone’s life, where people are tried and convicted online without regard for truth,’ he wrote. ‘This is dangerous and wrong.’
Wiley posted messages he claims were from his accuser after the alleged assault which show that Awuah-Darko remained keen to pursue a relationship
His denial came a day after Ingram claimed he was raped at the artist’s New York apartment in September 2021.
‘During the course of our relationship there were moments of extreme violence which included being punched in an Uber, being slapped along with severe emotional manipulation.
‘I informed friends of my assault and abuse while initially too afraid to come forward publicly about my experience, especially when I learned about his significance in the art world.’
Awuah-Darko said on his post that it took him ‘several months to reconcile what had actually happened to me’.
‘I did not immediately confront the reality of my abuse as such.’
But Wiley accused him of pursuing him for ‘years’.
‘In his reckless smear campaign he has harassed friends and colleagues, desperately seeking any information to support his ridiculous claims,’ he wrote. ‘He found nothing.
He finally managed to conspire with a person I had a brief consensual encounter with in 2021; this person also hoped for a more significant relationship.
I have texts from this individual sent after our encounter in which he says I am ‘amazing’ and he ‘wants to see me again’.
Wiley is one of six children born to a Nigerian father and an African-American mother who grew up in South Central Los Angeles in the 1980s.
When he was about 11 years old he enrolled in a small art conservatory, according to his website.
Black Lives Matter co-founder Derrick Ingram has also now stepped forward with allegations that he was raped during an abusive four-month relationship with Wiley in 2021
The 2018 portrait now hangs in the the Smithsonian National Portrait Gallery
He went on to earn his BFA from the San Francisco Art Institute in 1999 and his MFA from Yale University, School of Art in 2001.
The New York-based artist is known for his massive canvases that showcase contemporary African Americans in positions of power and strength.
He came under fire in 2018 when it emerged he had painted at least two portraits of black women holding a knife in one hand and the decapitated head of a white woman in the other.
Wiley said the paintings are based on Renaissance works by Caravaggio and Gentileschi depicting the Biblical story of Judith beheading the Assyrian general Holofernes.
Awuah-Darko is raising funds for a legal action against Wiley saying he hopes his ‘openness about my painful experience empower others to come forward’.
But Wiley has insisted that he will see off his accusers.
‘What is clear is that my accusers wanted far more than I was willing to give them,’ he wrote.
‘Does that give them the right to commit character assassination? No it does not.’
