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Modern and Contemporary African Art: A Collaborative Vanderbilt Student Research Project

Andrew Graham-Dixon interviews Chris Ofili

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15. Chris Ofili, No Woman No Cry, 1998. Mixed Media, 96x72 in. Tate, London. No Woman No Cry was part of the exhibition for which Ofili won the Turner prize in 1998. The mixed media work incorporates oil paint, acrylic paint, graphite, polyester resin, printed paper, glitter, map pins, and elephant dung on canvas. The painting depicts a woman crying against a byzantine-esque gold printed background. Elephant dung is used to form the base the painting rests on, as well as the woman’s necklace. The woman depicted in the painting is Doreen Lawerence, the mother of murdered teenager Stephen Lawrence, a victim of a racist attack. Newsprint images of Stephen Lawrence can be seen in the middle of the tears. The painting, with the weeping mother who is represented as a Madonna figure, is a play off the notion of a piéta. Ofili’s title for this work references the popular Bob Marley song of the same title and is representative of his incorporation of popular culture and music into his art.
16. Chris Ofili, The Adoration of Captain Shit, 1999. Mixed media, 96x72 in. Carnegie Museum of Art, Pittsburgh. The Adoration of Captain Shit is part of a three part series featuring the superhero/soul singer Captain Shit. The mixed media in this work consists of acrylic paint, oil paint, paper collage, map pins, glitter, and elephant dung on linen. In the image, bodiless hands of different colors reach towards an abstract, cape-wearing figure. The background is composed of large stars with newsprint eyes and smaller stars on top of elephant dung. The work is supported by two pieces of dung reading “they adore.”
17. Chris Ofili, The Healer, 2008. Oil on Linen, Tate, London. The Healer depicts wilting yellow flowers against a dark, green and black background. The painting is one of Ofili’s more recent works produced in Trinidad that display a reduction in color palette and a shift away from mixed media. About The Healer, Ofili says, “it's about trying to paint the mystical nature of Trinidad. There's this bright yellow flowering tree here called the yellow poui that blossoms at certain times of the year with incredibly bright flowers. But overnight, or over a very short period of time, the flowers all fall off. You'll see one bright yellow tree, and the next day the flowers will be on the ground. Thinking about this I imagined that at night "the healer" feasts on poui flowers feverishly, and in the frenzy many of the flowers fall to the ground. I painted the first images of The Healer outdoors during a total lunar eclipse. He is born of the imagination sparked by the forms in the clouds hovering over the hills that night” (The Guardian. N.p., 20 Sept. 2009. Web).
18. Chéri Samba, "Condemnation without Judgment". 1989-90.
19. Chéri Samba. "Le Monde Vomissant". 2003.

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Chris Ofili

Chris Ofili was born in 1968 to Nigerian parents in Britain. Currently, he lives and works in Trinidad. Ofili studied at the Chelsea school of Art and the Royal College of Art in London. In 1998, Ofili won the Turner Prize for an exhibition including the painting No Woman No Cry. Ofili is best known for his multimedia process, notably for his incorporation of elephant dung into his paintings.
Ofili is considered part of the second generation of Young British Artists (YBAs). He rose to fame in the late 1990s when Charles Saatchi, a broker of contemporary art, exhibited his work along with the work of other YBAs. Ofili can be considered a Nigerian affiliated artist because of his heritage, but has lived and worked abroad for his entire life. In his work produced between 1992 and 2003, Ofili commonly incorporated elephant dung. He fist encountered the dung on a trip to Zimbabwe and brought it back with him, proceeding to incorporate that literal piece of Africa into his work. While the inclusion of elephant dung can be viewed as a direct reference to Africa, Ofili’s work more commonly includes references to modern black culture. Ofili has related his use of elephant dung, and mixed media in general, to the “cut and paste” feel of hip-hop music of the 1990s. Additionally, the influence of Blaxploitation movies on his art can be seen in his Captain Shit series. More recently, while living in Trinidad, Ofili has produced works, such as The Healer, inspired by the nature of the island surrounding him. Just as Trinidad now influences his work, London influenced Ofili while he was living there; Ofili’s art draws on the environment, the culture, and the events he is surrounded by as an artist of African descent living in Britain and Trinidad.

In the above video, Andrew Graham-Dixon interviews Chris Ofili prior the opening of Ofili’s mid-life retrospective show at the Tate in 2010. The interview provides a brief synopsis of Ofili’s career, describing his rise to fame in the late 1990s as part of the second wave of YBA’s and emphasizes major developments in his work. Throughout the interview, Ofili makes repeated reference to the effect of location on his artistic production, a topic of interest when studying artists of African descent working abroad. In reference to his earlier paintings, Ofili describes how his use of elephant dung was inspired by a trip to Zimbabwe in 1992 as well as the events he saw unfold around him while living in Kings Cross in London, an area that he describes was used as a “public toilet.” Additionally, Ofili describes his move to Trinidad in 2005 as a “good excuse” to change the way he paints. Following his move to Trinidad, his paintings differ drastically from his earlier works. Ofili attributes this change partially to a pre-existing desire to work in a different way and partially to the influence of Trinidad, notably of the waking hours without daylight he experiences living there.