‘Portrait of the Artist Helping With Enquiries’ is based on Donkor’s experiences with the police in the early 1980s. On his first night in London aged 19, Donkor was stopped in Brixton by the police who stated they wanted him to help with enquiries and took him to the local police station where he was interrogated. As he has stated: “‘Helping with enquiries’ is a common, ironic phrase meaning someone has been arrested. They say ‘so and so is helping with police enquiries,’ and it’s a euphemism for being interrogated.” (Interview with Hackney Guardian, 1 October 2012). When the work was originally exhibited at The Bettie Morton Gallery in Brixton in 2005, plain-clothes police officers visited the gallery and asked that the painting be removed from display on the grounds of nudity. The gallery refused. Donkor commented at the time: "This kind of heavy-handed approach towards the black community is exactly what my work is addressing.” (Artdaily, 5 November 2005). The work was later exhibited at the 2017 Venice Biennale as part of the much-lauded Diaspora Pavilion. The painting, like a number of Donors works from the early 2000s is a powerful statement about the state using violent power to subjugate black communities.