(artist) Chris Ofili(1968~)

My only knowledge about Chris Ofili was that he is one of the YBAs with Damien Hirst, Tracy Emin, etc., which means his works must be sensational. I just read that an exhibition of Chris Ofili is being held in Tate Britain from 27 Jan to 16 May 2010.

Not only one of the YBAs, Ofili is the Turner Prize winner of 1998, and represented Britain in the 50th Venie Biennale in 2003. My first exposure to his paintings was seeing the thress paintings shown below in a magazine.

"Holy Virgin Mary"

In 1999 "Holy Virgin Mary" was exhibitied in Brooklyn Museum of Art in the show called "Sensation: Young British Artists from the Saatchi collection".

At that time, this painting was a hot potato, interestingly, politically. New York Mayor Rudolph Giuliani started it. As a Catholic, Jiuliani regarded it as a kind of insult to Mary and Cathilics. In this painting, Virgin Mary was represented as an African woman, and the things around Mary are a collage of pornographic images, which are female genitalia. Moreover, he put elephant dung on her breast. (I'd say Ofili is Catholic, too.) Giuliani threatened that city sould withdraw funding to Brooklyn Museum of Art unless they canceled this exhibition. Hilary Clinton, who is a kind of political rival to him defended the museum. Whatever politicians do is always a big promotion for the museum. ( There is no such thing as bad publicity)

And one more, a 72 year old retired teacher defaced this painting with white oil paint during the exhibition. He eventually got a fine. It seems like it was a real sensation at that time. However, we, art lovers and art history students, regard it as just a sensational, brilliant, fresh idea. Maybe because it happened already 10 years ago, we regard it part of history.

" No woman no cry"

It is said that "No woman no cry" represents general melancholy and grief, but according to Tate display caption, London teenager Stephen Lawrence got murdered by racial motivation. To commemorate him, ofili depicted the murdered boy in each tear.

"Blossom"

Isn't it pleasant to see each of his pieces of art supported by lumps of elephant dung? Both tThe pendant in and the balls "BLOSSOM" made by dung are brilliant! A pendant is usually most precious, and the word "blossom" gives the image of flowers. So by using dung, he has completely contradicted our images.

Ofili is a British artist who studied in Chelsea School of Art and Royal College of Art. As you imagined from his African woman portrait, he is of Nigerian descent. In the early 1990s, he had an opportunity to travel to Zimbabwe. This travel might affected his art a lot. It is simply not easy to find elephant dung in England unless it is at the zoo. (Actually, I heard that he got dung from London zoo) I heard that elephant dung is sacred in Africa.

"Afrodizzia"

"Courtesy of David Zwinrner"

"Afrodizzia" and "Courtesy of David Zwirner"

Those paintings make me feel the African, ethnic, and exotic mood. I'm not really sure about the background of those paintings, but they are colorful, powerful, and happy, which is one of my favorite factor of art.

Personally, I didn't get to see his pictures for very long, and until then, I thought he was a woman. Because he paints a lot of female portraits, I thought this artist must be a feminist. However, he is a real man-looking guy~~^^