Artist Kehinde Wiley, best-known to many for painting Barack Obama's official presidential portrait, is opening an artists' residency in Senegal. The residency will become home of about 15 artist at Black Rock Senegal.

"They’ll arrive three at a time and live in townhouses on the property next to Wiley's personal studio, where tutors will be available to teach them French, English and Wolof - Senegal’s mother tongue," the Washington Post quotes a Black Rock Senegal representative as saying.

The organizers' website says the selected artists will stay between one and three months, during which time they will meet "local artists, artisans, and arts organizations."

Senegal has made positive headlines in recent years. In 2017, the West African country opened its new ultra-modern Blaise Diagne International Airport. In 2018, Senegal became home of the new Musée des Civilisations Noires (Museum of Black Civilizations), whose size puts it in league with the National Museum of African American History and Culture in Washington, DC.  

And in 2019, President Macky Sall attended the opening ceremony for the first phase of a new express railway which connects Dakar with Diamniadio, a city around 36 kilometers (22 miles) from the capital. An additional 15 kilometers (9 miles) of line will later be built between Diamniadio and the new airport. He also joined Gambian President Adama Barrow with opening the Senegambian Bridge, linking the two countries and the subregion this year.