Artist Kehinde Wiley has been accused of sexual assault by a fellow artist, Ogechi Chieke, in a lawsuit that was filed in New York this past February.
Wiley, who is most famous for painting Barack Obama’s official presidential portrait, has faced multiple allegations of sexual assault by men in the past year. Many of those claims were made on Instagram, and he has repeatedly denied the allegations against him.
But Chieke’s lawsuit is the first time any of those accusations have been aired in a legal setting.
Her lawsuit was filed in New York Supreme Court on February 28, one day before the expiration of an amendment to New York’s Victims of Gender-Motivated Violence Protection Law that allowed survivors to file suits related to incidents of gender-based violence that occurred at any point in the past. Chieke alleged that Wiley assaulted her at a New York restaurant in 2007.
In the suit, Chieke claimed that she had gone to a dinner with Wiley, who “began to press his chest” against hers while they awaited a table. He allegedly proceeded to grab her buttocks. “Wiley then forcibly grabbed her vagina—causing her severe pain—and whispered that he ‘would lick that pussy so clean,’” the lawsuit alleges.
According to the suit, Chieke left New York because of the alleged assault and “stopped working in fine art … due to the trauma inflicted upon her by Wiley.”
The suit was first reported by the Independent in February but which has not been reportedly widely.
Chieke’s lawyers, Eric M. Baum and Reyna Lubin, said in a statement to ARTnews that Wiley had “violated the law,” as well as Chieke’s “civil rights.”
In a statement to ARTnews, Wiley said, “There is no truth to Ms. Chieke’s allegations. I’ve never met her, nor do I know her.” He called her lawsuit a “blatant money-grab” and added, “Just as I convincingly defended myself against the others, I will not let her baseless accusations damage my name and reputation.”
Wiley was first accused of sexual assault last summer by artist Joseph Awuah-Darko. His allegations were made to Instagram not long before Terrell Armistead came forward with claims against Wiley. Both Awuah-Darko and Armistead alleged that they had been raped by Wiley, who said he had had consensual encounters with both men.
Wiley denied having assaulted Awuah-Darko and Armistead. He similarly denied claims by two other men who subsequently alleged that the artist had assaulted them. Awuah-Darko has said he would take legal action against Wiley, but no reports of a lawsuit have emerged.
Several museums have canceled planned presentations of Wiley’s art, including the Minneapolis Institute of Art, which was scheduled to take a traveling survey of his paintings and sculptures. The museum called the allegations against Wiley “unfortunate.”
