Chris Ofili

Christopher Ofili’s multilayered paintings are simultaneously formally and conceptually complex. Mixing together glitter, resin, paper, map pins, glue and his signature elephant dung, he also shifts between figuration, abstraction and decoration. His subjects have ranged from religious figures and pop culture to Zimbabwean cave paintings and Modernist painting, constantly juxtaposing high and low, current and ancient, sacred and profane. Through each painting, Ofili investigates the representation of race, desire and personal identity, seeking to celebrate both contemporary and historical black experiences.

Born in 1968 in Manchester, Ofili first splashed onto the contemporary art scene as one of the Young British Artists alongside Tracy Emin, Damien Hirst and Sarah Lucas. He studied at the Chelsea School of Art and the Royal College of Art in London, and in 1998, he became the first black artist to receive the Turner Prize. In 1999, when his controversial painting The Holy Virgin Mary was shown in New York, he sparked national outrage, and the current mayor vowed to have it removed from public display; more than a decade later, this painting was included in his mid-career retrospective at the New Museum, having since been recognized as a historic artwork. Ofili has been the subject of other major exhibitions worldwide, including at the Studio Museum in Harlem and Tate Britain. Since 2005, Ofili has lived and worked in Trinidad and Tobago.

-       Afronirvana, 2002, Oil, acrylic, polyester resin, aluminum foil, glitter, map pins and elephant dung on canvas, 108 x 144 inches (274.3 x 365.7 cm), shown in the artist’s retrospective at the New Museum

-      Dangerous Liaisons,2019