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

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).

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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.