Barack Obama's presidential portrait was just unveiled — and people are having a field day with it

• Barack Obama's painting for the Smithsonian's National Portrait Gallery was unveiled.
• It looks a bit different.
• The painting shows him sitting in a wooden chair in front of a lot of foliage.
• Twitter turned it into some funny memes.

On Monday, Barack Obama had his presidential portrait unveiled. It will hang in the Smithsonian's National Portrait Gallery. But something about it looks different.

Instead of the usual conservative image of a guy in a suit standing next to a wooden desk (with a few exceptions), the artist drew him in front of foliage.

Obama selected Kehinde Wiley, a painter famous for depicting black figures in dignified yet colorful poses, to paint his portrait. Michelle Obama, too, has an unusual painting, made by the Baltimore artist Amy Sherald.

Wiley explained that the foliage behind Obama was a way of "charting his path on Earth," since it includes flowers from Kenya, Hawaii, and Chicago — all significant places in the former president's life.

But users on Twitter immediately drew pop culture comparisons. The portrait recalls, for example, a famous scene from "The Simpsons" where Homer Simpson recedes into the bushes.

It also looks a bit like the poster for "mother!"

And the time President Trump's former White House press secretary, Sean Spicer, apparently hid among the bushes to avoid questions from reporters.

Also, remember the time Obama appeared on "Between Two Ferns?"

The painting is a perfectly meme-able image. It's easy to put into different contexts and have fun with.

Obama himself, though, was hoping it'd look a little different.

"I tried to negotiate less gray hair, and Kehinde's artistic integrity would not allow him to do what I asked," Obama said at the portrait's unveiling ceremony. "I tried to negotiate smaller ears, struck out on that as well."

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