Christopher Ofili, (born 10 October 1968) is a British

Turner Prize The Turner Prize, named after the English painter J. M. W. Turner, is an annual prize presented to a British visual artist. Between 1991 and 2016, only artists under the age of 50 were eligible (this restriction was removed for the 2017 award) ...

-winning painter who is best known for his paintings incorporating elephant dung. He was one of the

Young British Artists The Young British Artists, or YBAs—also referred to as Brit artists and Britart—is a loose group of visual artists who first began to exhibit together in London in 1988. Many of the YBA artists graduated from the BA Fine Art course at Goldsm ...

. Since 2005, Ofili has been living and working in

Trinidad and Tobago Trinidad and Tobago (, ), officially the Republic of Trinidad and Tobago, is the southernmost island country in the Caribbean. Consisting of the main islands Trinidad and Tobago, and numerous much smaller islands, it is situated south of ...

, where he currently resides in Port of Spain. He also lives and works in

London London is the capital and largest city of England and the United Kingdom, with a population of just under 9 million. It stands on the River Thames in south-east England at the head of a estuary down to the North Sea, and has been a majo ...

and

Brooklyn Brooklyn () is a borough of New York City, coextensive with Kings County, in the U.S. state of New York. Kings County is the most populous county in the State of New York, and the second-most densely populated county in the United States, be ...

Calvin Tomkins Calvin Tomkins (born 17 December 1925) is an author and art critic for ''The New Yorker'' magazine. Life and career Tomkins was born in Orange, New Jersey. After graduating from Berkshire School, he attended Princeton University and received an un ...

(6 October 2014)
"Into the Unknown: Chris Ofili returns to New York with a major retrospective"
''

The New Yorker ''The New Yorker'' is an American weekly magazine featuring journalism, commentary, criticism, essays, fiction, satire, cartoons, and poetry. Founded as a weekly in 1925, the magazine is published 47 times annually, with five of these issues ...

''. Ofili has utilized resin, beads, oil paint, glitter, lumps of elephant dung and cut-outs from pornographic magazines as painting elements. His work has been classified as "punk art."

Early life and education

Ofili was born in

Manchester Manchester () is a city in Greater Manchester, England. It had a population of 552,000 in 2021. It is bordered by the Cheshire Plain to the south, the Pennines to the north and east, and the neighbouring city of Salford to the west. The t ...

to May and Michael Ofili. When he was eleven, his father left the family and moved back to

Nigeria Nigeria ( ), , ig, Naìjíríyà, yo, Nàìjíríà, pcm, Naijá , ff, Naajeeriya, kcg, Naijeriya officially the Federal Republic of Nigeria, is a country in West Africa. It is situated between the Sahel to the north and the Gulf o ...

. Ofili was for some years educated at St. Pius X High School for Boys, and then at

Xaverian College Xaverian College is a Roman Catholic college in Manchester, England, south of the city centre in Rusholme. Established in 1862, Xaverian College has become one of the most oversubscribed Sixth form college in Greater Manchester, along with Lore ...

Victoria Park, Manchester Victoria Park is a suburban area of Manchester, England. Victoria Park lies approximately two miles south of Manchester city centre, between Rusholme and Longsight. History and description In 1836, a unique enterprise was undertaken by Rich ...

. Ofili completed a foundation course in art at

Tameside College Tameside College is a further education college located in Ashton-under-Lyne, Greater Manchester, England. The college offers a range of courses for students from Tameside and the surrounding area. These courses include NVQs, BTECs, Apprenti ...

Ashton-under-Lyne Ashton-under-Lyne is a market town in Tameside, Greater Manchester, England. The population was 45,198 at the 2011 census. Historically in Lancashire, it is on the north bank of the River Tame, in the foothills of the Pennines, east of Manche ...

in Greater Manchester and then studied in

, at the

Chelsea School of Art Chelsea College of Arts is a constituent college of the University of the Arts London based in London, United Kingdom, and is a leading British art and design institution with an international reputation. It offers further and higher educat ...

from 1988 to 1991 and at the

Royal College of Art The Royal College of Art (RCA) is a public research university in London, United Kingdom, with campuses in South Kensington, Battersea and White City. It is the only entirely postgraduate art and design university in the United Kingdom. It offe ...

from 1991 to 1993. In the autumn of 1992, he got a one-year exchange scholarship to

Universität der Künste Berlin The Universität der Künste Berlin (UdK; also known in English as the Berlin University of the Arts), situated in Berlin, Germany, is the largest art school in Europe. It is a public art and design school, and one of the four research universiti ...

. Ofili visited

Trinidad Trinidad is the larger and more populous of the two major islands of Trinidad and Tobago. The island lies off the northeastern coast of Venezuela and sits on the continental shelf of South America. It is often referred to as the southernmos ...

for the first time in 2000, when he was invited by an international art trust to attend a painting workshop in Port of Spain. He permanently moved to Trinidad in 2005. In 2002, he married Roba El-Essawy, former singer with

trip-hop Trip hop (sometimes used synonymously with "downtempo") is a musical genre that originated in the early 1990s in the United Kingdom, especially Bristol. It has been described as a psychedelic fusion of hip hop and electronica with slow tempos ...

band Attica Blues. They divorced in 2019. He maintains a studio in Port of Spain, Trinidad.

Career

Ofili's early work was heavily influenced by

Jean-Michel Basquiat Jean-Michel Basquiat (; December 22, 1960 – August 12, 1988) was an American artist who rose to success during the 1980s as part of the Neo-expressionism movement. Basquiat first achieved fame as part of the graffiti duo SAMO, alongside Al ...

, Georg Baselitz,

Philip Guston Philip Guston (born Phillip Goldstein, June 27, 1913 – June 7, 1980), was a Canadian American painter, printmaker, muralist and draftsman. Early in his five decade career, muralist David Siquieros described him as one of "the most promising ...

, and

George Condo George Condo (born 1957) is an American visual artist who works in painting, drawing, sculpture and printmaking. He lives and works in New York City. Early life Condo was born in Concord, New Hampshire. He studied art history and music ...

Peter Doig Peter Doig ( ; born 17 April 1959) is a Scottish painter. One of the most renowned living figurative painters, he has settled in Trinidad since 2002. In 2007, his painting ''White Canoe'' sold at Sotheby's for $11.3 million, then an auction rec ...

was doing graduate work at the

Chelsea College of Arts Chelsea College of Arts is a constituent college of the University of the Arts London based in London, United Kingdom, and is a leading British art and design institution with an international reputation. It offers further and higher educat ...

when Ofili was an undergraduate, and they soon became friends. In 2014, art critic

Roberta Smith Roberta Smith (born 1948) is co-chief art critic of ''The New York Times'' and a lecturer on contemporary art. She is the first woman to hold that position. Early life Born in 1948 in New York City and raised in Lawrence, Kansas. Smith studied a ...

held that Ofili has much in common with painters like

Mickalene Thomas Mickalene Thomas (born January 28, 1971) is a contemporary African-American visual artist best known as a painter of complex works using rhinestones, acrylic, and enamel.

Kerry James Marshall Kerry James Marshall (born October 17, 1955) is an American artist and professor, known for his paintings of Black figures. He previously taught painting at the School of Art and Design at the University of Illinois at Chicago. In 2017, Marshall ...

Robert Colescott Robert H. Colescott (August 26, 1925 – June 4, 2009) was an American painter. He is known for satirical genre and crowd subjects, often conveying his exuberant, comical, or bitter reflections on being African American. He studied with Fernand L ...

and

Ellen Gallagher Ellen Gallagher (born December 16, 1965) is an American artist. Her work has been shown in numerous solo and group exhibitions and is held in the permanent collections of many major museums. Her media include painting, works on paper, film and ...

, and with more distant precedents such as Bob Thompson,

Beauford Delaney Beauford Delaney (December 30, 1901 – March 26, 1979) was an American modernist painter. He is remembered for his work with the Harlem Renaissance in the 1930s and 1940s, as well as his later works in abstract expressionism following his move ...

and William H. Johnson. Ofili was established through exhibitions by

Charles Saatchi Charles Saatchi (; ar, تشارلز ساعتجي; born 9 June 1943) is an Iraqi-British businessman and the co-founder, with his brother Maurice, of advertising agency Saatchi & Saatchi. The brothers led the business – the world's largest a ...

at his gallery in north London and the travelling exhibition ''

Sensation Sensation (psychology) refers to the processing of the senses by the sensory system. Sensation or sensations may also refer to: In arts and entertainment In literature *Sensation (fiction), a fiction writing mode *Sensation novel, a British ...

'' (1997), becoming recognised as one of the few British artists of African / Caribbean descent to break through as a member of the

group. Ofili has also had numerous solo shows since the early 1990s, including at Southampton City Art Gallery]. In 1998, Ofili won the

, and in 2003 he was selected to represent Britain at the

Venice Biennale The Venice Biennale (; it, La Biennale di Venezia) is an international cultural exhibition hosted annually in Venice, Italy by the Biennale Foundation. The biennale has been organised every year since 1895, which makes it the oldest of ...

of that year, where his work for the British Pavilion was done in collaboration with the architect

David Adjaye Sir David Frank Adjaye (born 22 September 1966) is a Ghanaian-British architect. He is known for having designed many notable buildings around the world, including the National Museum of African American History and Culture in Washington, D.C ...

. In 1992 he won a scholarship that allowed him to travel to

Zimbabwe Zimbabwe (), officially the Republic of Zimbabwe, is a landlocked country located in Southeast Africa, between the Zambezi and Limpopo Rivers, bordered by South Africa to the south, Botswana to the south-west, Zambia to the north, and Mozam ...

. Ofili studied

cave painting In archaeology, Cave paintings are a type of parietal art (which category also includes petroglyphs, or engravings), found on the wall or ceilings of caves. The term usually implies prehistoric origin, and the oldest known are more than 40,000 ye ...

s there, which had some effect on his style. Between 1995 and 2005, Ofili focused on a series of watercolors, each about 9½ by 6½ inches and produced in a single sitting. They predominantly feature heads of men and women, as well as some studies of flowers and birds.Carol Vogel (5 May 2005)
"An Artist's Gallery of Ideas: Chris Ofili's Watercolors"
''The New York Times''. Ofili's paintings also make reference to

blaxploitation Blaxploitation is an ethnic subgenre of the exploitation film that emerged in the United States during the early 1970s. The term, a portmanteau of the words "black" and "exploitation", was coined in August 1972 by Junius Griffin, the president o ...

films and

gangsta rap Gangsta rap or gangster rap, initially called reality rap, emerged in the mid- to late 1980s as a controversial hip-hop subgenre whose lyrics assert the culture and values typical of American street gangs and street hustlers. Many gangsta rappe ...

, seeking to question racial and sexual stereotypes in a humorous way. In a series of faces that Ofili called ''Harems'', each arrangement consists of one man with as many as four women on each side of him. Ofili's work is often built up in layers of paint, resin, glitter, dung (mainly elephant) and other materials to create a

collage Collage (, from the french: coller, "to glue" or "to stick together";) is a technique of art creation, primarily used in the visual arts, but in music too, by which art results from an assemblage of different forms, thus creating a new whole. ...

. Though Ofili's detractors often state that he "splatters" elephant dung on his pictures, this is inaccurate: he sometimes applies it directly to the canvas in the form of dried spherical lumps, and sometimes, in the same form, uses it as varnished foot-like supports on which the paintings stand. Ofili has been founder and prime mover behind the short-lived ''Freeness Project''. This project involved the coming together of artists, producers and musicians of minority ethnic groups (Asian and African) in an attempt to expose the music that may be unheard in other spaces. Freeness allowed the creativity of unsigned contemporary British ethnic minority artists to be heard. The result of months of tours to 10 cities in the UK resulted in ''Freeness Volume 1'' – a compilation of works that were shown during the tour. After relocating to Trinidad in 2005, Ofili began a series of blue paintings inspired by the ''Jab Jab'' or "blue devils" who participate in the

Trinidad and Tobago Carnival The Trinidad and Tobago Carnival is an annual event held on the Monday and Tuesday before Ash Wednesday in Trinidad and Tobago. This event is well known for participants' colorful costumes and exuberant celebrations. There are numerous cultural e ...

, and the

Expressionist Expressionism is a modernist movement, initially in poetry and painting, originating in Northern Europe around the beginning of the 20th century. Its typical trait is to present the world solely from a subjective perspective, distorting it rad ...

group of German and Russian artists, ''

Der Blaue Reiter ''Der Blaue Reiter'' (The Blue Rider) is a designation by Wassily Kandinsky and Franz Marc for their exhibition and publication activities, in which both artists acted as sole editors in the almanac of the same name, first published in mid-May ...

.'' These paintings often employed the use of a silver, acrylic background with layers of dark oil pigment on top. Later iterations of these works were shown at Ofili's solo show ''Chris Ofili: Day and Night'' at The New Museum of New York which were installed in a very dimly lit room, causing viewers to adjust their eyes to the darkness in order to see the paintings. Ofili was appointed

Commander of the Order of the British Empire The Most Excellent Order of the British Empire is a British order of chivalry, rewarding contributions to the arts and sciences, work with charitable and welfare organisations, and public service outside the civil service. It was established o ...

(CBE) in the

2017 New Year Honours The 2017 New Year Honours are appointments by some of the 16 Commonwealth realms to various orders and honours to recognise and reward good works by citizens of those countries. The New Year Honours were awarded as part of the New Year celebrati ...

for services to art. Ofili was included in the

2019 File:2019 collage v1.png, From top left, clockwise: Hong Kong protests turn to widespread riots and civil disobedience; House of Representatives votes to adopt articles of impeachment against Donald Trump; CRISPR gene editing first used to experim ...

edition of the

Powerlist The ''Powerlist'' is a list of the 100 most influential people of African or African Caribbean heritage in the United Kingdom. The list is updated annually and has been published in book format by Powerful Media since 2007. The ''Powerlist'' is ...

, ranking the 100 most influential Black Britons. Sensation Young British Artists from the Saatchi Collection at the Brooklyn Museum 17.jpg, Chris Ofili
Saatchi Collection 2017 Union Black at Tate Britain, 2010 close-up.jpg, Union Black – Chris Ofili – Tate Britain (2010)

Exhibitions

Ofili's work was featured in a museum in the 1995 exhibition ''Brilliant! New Art from London'' at the

Walker Art Center The Walker Art Center is a multidisciplinary contemporary art center in the Lowry Hill neighborhood of Minneapolis, Minnesota, United States. The Walker is one of the most-visited modern and contemporary art museums in the United States and, t ...

. Significant solo exhibitions include the

Arts Club of Chicago Arts Club of Chicago is a private club and public exhibition space located in the Near North Side community area of Chicago in Cook County, Illinois, United States, a block east of the Magnificent Mile, that exhibits international contemporar ...

(2010),

Kestnergesellschaft Kestner Gesellschaft (Kestner Society) is an art institution in Hanover, Germany, founded in 1916 to promote the arts. Its founders included the painter Wilhelm von Debschitz (1871–1948). The association blossomed under the management of and , ...

Hanover Hanover (; german: Hannover ; nds, Hannober) is the capital and largest city of the German state of Lower Saxony. Its 535,932 (2021) inhabitants make it the 13th-largest city in Germany as well as the fourth-largest city in Northern Germany ...

(2006), the

Studio Museum in Harlem The Studio Museum in Harlem is an American art museum devoted to the work of artists of African descent. The museum's galleries are currently closed in preparation for a building project that will replace the current building, located at 144 W ...

, New York (2005), and Southampton City Art Gallery (1998). In 2010,

Tate Britain Tate Britain, known from 1897 to 1932 as the National Gallery of British Art and from 1932 to 2000 as the Tate Gallery, is an art museum on Millbank in the City of Westminster in London, England. It is part of the Tate network of galleries in ...

presented the most extensive exhibition of his work to date. In 2014, The New Museum in New York presented the first, major solo show of Ofili's work in the U.S. titled ''Chris Ofili: Night and Day''.

Controversy

''The Holy Virgin Mary''

One of his paintings, ''

The Holy Virgin Mary ''The Holy Virgin Mary'' is a painting created by Chris Ofili in 1996. It was one of the works included in the ''Sensation'' exhibition in London, Berlin and New York in 1997–2000. The subject of the work, and its execution, caused considera ...

'', a depiction of the

Virgin Mary Mary; arc, ܡܪܝܡ, translit=Mariam; ar, مريم, translit=Maryam; grc, Μαρία, translit=María; la, Maria; cop, Ⲙⲁⲣⲓⲁ, translit=Maria was a first-century Jewish woman of Nazareth, the wife of Joseph and the mother o ...

, was at issue in a lawsuit between the mayor of

New York City New York, often called New York City or NYC, is the List of United States cities by population, most populous city in the United States. With a 2020 population of 8,804,190 distributed over , New York City is also the L ...

Rudy Giuliani Rudolph William Louis Giuliani (, ; born May 28, 1944) is an American politician and lawyer who served as the 107th Mayor of New York City from 1994 to 2001. He previously served as the United States Associate Attorney General from 1981 to 198 ...

, and the

Brooklyn Museum of Art The Brooklyn Museum is an art museum located in the New York City borough of Brooklyn. At , the museum is New York City's second largest and contains an art collection with around 1.5 million objects. Located near the Prospect Heights, Crown H ...

when it was exhibited there in 1999 as a part of the "Sensation" exhibit. The painting depicted a

Black Madonna The term ''Black Madonna'' or ''Black Virgin'' tends to refer to statues or paintings in Western Christendom of the Blessed Virgin Mary and the Infant Jesus, where both figures are depicted with dark skin. The Black Madonna can be found both ...

surrounded by images from

movies and close-ups of female genitalia cut from pornographic magazines, and elephant dung. These were formed into shapes reminiscent of the

cherubim A cherub (; plural cherubim; he, כְּרוּב ''kərūḇ'', pl. ''kərūḇīm'', likely borrowed from a derived form of akk, 𒅗𒊏𒁍 ''karabu'' "to bless" such as ''karibu'', "one who blesses", a name for the lamassu) is one of the u ...

and

seraphim A seraph (, "burning one"; plural seraphim ) is a type of celestial or heavenly being originating in Ancient Judaism. The term plays a role in subsequent Judaism, Christianity, and Islam. Tradition places seraphim in the highest rank in Chris ...

commonly depicted in images of the

Immaculate Conception The Immaculate Conception is the belief that the Virgin Mary was free of original sin from the moment of her conception. It is one of the four Marian dogmas of the Catholic Church, meaning that it is held to be a divinely revealed truth w ...

and the

Assumption of Mary The Assumption of Mary is one of the four Marian dogmas of the Catholic Church. Pope Pius XII defined it in 1950 in his apostolic constitution ''Munificentissimus Deus'' as follows: We proclaim and define it to be a dogma revealed by Go ...

. Following the scandal surrounding this painting,

Bernard Goldberg Bernard Richard Goldberg (born May 31, 1945) is an American author, journalist, and pundit (expert), political pundit. Goldberg has won fourteen Emmy Awards and was a producer, reporter and correspondent for CBS News for twenty-eight years (1972� ...

ranked Ofili No. 86 in ''

100 People Who Are Screwing Up America ''100 People Who Are Screwing Up America (and Al Franken is #37)'' is a non-fiction book by conservative pundit Bernard Goldberg that was published in 2005. The book's central idea is to name and blame a long list of specific individuals whom G ...

''.

Red Grooms Red Grooms (born Charles Rogers Grooms on June 7, 1937) is an American multimedia artist best known for his colorful pop art, pop-art constructions depicting frenetic scenes of modern urban life. Grooms was given the nickname "Red" by Dominic ...

showed his support of the artist by purchasing one of Ofili's paintings in 1999, even after Giuliani famously exclaimed, "There’s nothing in the First Amendment that supports horrible and disgusting projects!" The painting was owned by David Walsh and was on display at the

Museum of Old and New Art The Museum of Old and New Art (MONA) is an art museum located within the Moorilla winery on the Berriedale peninsula in Hobart, Tasmania, Australia. It is the largest privately funded museum in the Southern Hemisphere. MONA houses ancient, mode ...

Hobart Hobart ( ; Nuennonne/Palawa kani: ''nipaluna'') is the capital and most populous city of the Australian island state of Tasmania. Home to almost half of all Tasmanians, it is the least-populated Australian state capital city, and second-small ...

Tasmania ) , nickname = , image_map = Tasmania in Australia.svg , map_caption = Location of Tasmania in AustraliaCoordinates: , subdivision_type = Country , subdi ...

. Steven A. Cohen then owned it for three years and donated the painting to the

Museum of Modern Art The Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) is an art museum located in Midtown Manhattan, New York City, on 53rd Street between Fifth and Sixth Avenues. It plays a major role in developing and collecting modern art, and is often identified as one of ...

''The Upper Room'' and the Tate Gallery

''The Upper Room'' is an installation of 13 paintings of

rhesus macaque The rhesus macaque (''Macaca mulatta''), colloquially rhesus monkey, is a species of Old World monkey. There are between six and nine recognised subspecies that are split between two groups, the Chinese-derived and the Indian-derived. Generally b ...

monkeys by Ofili in a specially designed room. It was bought by the

Tate Gallery Tate is an institution that houses, in a network of four art galleries, the United Kingdom's national collection of British art, and international modern and contemporary art. It is not a government institution, but its main sponsor is the U ...

in 2005 and caused controversy as Ofili was on the board of the Tate Trustees at the time of the purchase. In 2006 the

Charity Commission , type = Non-ministerial government department , seal = , seal_caption = , logo = Charity Commission for England and Wales logo.svg , logo_caption = , formed = , preceding1 = , ...

censured the Tate for this purchase.

Art market

His ''Orgena'', a glittery portrait of a black woman created by the artist for his Turner Prize-winning exhibit at the Tate in 1998 was sold to an American collector for a record GBP 1.8 million, over its GBP 1 million high estimate, at

Christie's Christie's is a British auction house founded in 1766 by James Christie (auctioneer), James Christie. Its main premises are on King Street, St James's in London, at Rockefeller Center in New York City and at Alexandra House in Hong Kong. It is ...

London in 2010. In 2015, art collector David Walsh sold Ofili's 8-foot-tall ''The Holy Virgin Mary'' for 2.9 million pounds at

.Katya Kazakina (30 June 2015)
Ofili’s Madonna Sets Record at Christie’s $150.3 Million Sale
''

Bloomberg Business ''Bloomberg Businessweek'', previously known as ''BusinessWeek'', is an American weekly business magazine published fifty times a year. Since 2009, the magazine is owned by New York City-based Bloomberg L.P. The magazine debuted in New York City ...

''.

References

External links

*Caroline Deeds and Kate Voge
"Artist Chris Ofili: beyond the tears"
''The Guardian'', 3 February 2010. Tate Media film about Chris Ofili's 2010 exhibition at Tate Modern and how his move to Trinidad has freed up his work. *
Chris Ofili page
David Zwirner.
Victoria Miro Gallery: Chris Ofili"Turner Prize 1998 artists: Chris Ofili"
Tate.
"Chris Ofili profile"
BBC, 1 December 1998

Stuckism. *Mark Hudson

''The Telegraph'', 25 January 2010.
''Chris Ofili''
Rizzoli International, Fall 2009. Contributors include

Thelma Golden Thelma Golden (born 1965 in St. Albans, Queens) is the Director and Chief Curator of The Studio Museum in Harlem, New York City, United States. Golden joined the Museum as Deputy Director for Exhibitions and Programs in 2000 before succeeding ...

Okwui Enwezor Okwui Enwezor (23 October 1963 – 15 March 2019) was a Nigerian curator, art critic, writer, poet, and educator, specializing in art history. He lived in New York City and Munich. In 2014, he was ranked 24 in the ''ArtReview'' list of the 100 m ...

and

Kara Walker Kara Elizabeth Walker (born November 26, 1969) is an American contemporary painter, silhouettist, print-maker, installation artist, filmmaker, and professor who explores race, gender, sexuality, violence, and identity in her work. She is best k ...

.
"Shock and awe: The art of Chris Ofili"
feature by Michael Glover, and extract from "Ekow Eshun interviews Chris Ofili", edited by Helen Little in ''Chris Ofili'' (Tate Publishing, 2010), ''The Independent'', 22 January 2010.
''Chris Ofili''
Edited by Massimiliano Gioni, Gary Carrion-Murayari and Margot Norton. Skira Rizzoli, 2014. {{DEFAULTSORT:Ofili, Chris 1968 births Living people Artists from Manchester English people of Nigerian descent 20th-century British painters British male painters 21st-century British painters Alumni of Chelsea College of Arts Alumni of the Royal College of Art Black British artists Trinidad and Tobago painters British contemporary artists Turner Prize winners Young British Artists Commanders of the Order of the British Empire 21st-century male artists