No explanation is sufficient to cushion or sugarcoat the damage, regardless of the spin. It was a poor rendition and it turned out uglier than the former First Lady is ugly. Just take a god look at the portrait and you will see a Michelle Obama's body but without her face; somewhat an imposed stranger's face on her body.
Anyway, who knows what the intention of the First Couple are in deciding to use this two portraits as what they want to be remembered by for their time in the White House. But whatever their intention and believing that they were consulted during the painting and supervised them while they progressed, and subsequently approved the final outcome before it was presented to the public, the country deserved better. ICHEOKU regrets that the artists who worked on the paintings did a very bad job and will not hire them to paint even a worst enemy. They were mediocre at best and not good at what they do and did.
New York-based artist Kehinde Wiley and Baltimore based artist Amy Sherald who painted Barack Obama and Michelle Obama respectively for the National Portrait Gallery in Washington, will certainly not get more job referrals by reason of this their works. Very poorly rendered. ICHEOKU is not satisfied as a more experienced artist could have been retained and would have done a better job. SAD.