In "Sleep," Kehinde Wiley presents a reclining Black figure positioned against an ornate floral background, a composition that deliberately references historical European Old Master paintings while centering Black subjects who were historically absent from such elevated artistic traditions. Executed in oil on canvas with Wiley's characteristic elaborate decorative frame, the work interrogates canonical art history and questions whose bodies have been deemed worthy of artistic representation and reverence. The painting exemplifies Wiley's signature strategy of appropriating classical compositional formats to assert the dignity and presence of contemporary Black figures.