Friday, April 1, 2011

Chris Ofili Oficially

For the first of my biography posts i will look at Chris Ofili. Chris Ofili is a british painter born in Manchester. He studied at the Chelsea school of art. Ofili was a member of the Young British Artist group which was quite a big accomplishment. He became more and more popular and well known as his work was shown in more galleries. Ofili's work is very much to do with his Nigerian Background. He also has a very distinct style and after finding out that he had gone on a trip to Zimbabwe, i think this is where his technique came from.
File:Ofili-No-Woman.jpg
                                           http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Ofili-No-Woman.jpg
No Woman No Cry (1998) by Chris Ofili.


Chris Ofili
Afrodizzia (2nd version), 1996

In many of his paintings elephant dung was used in the painting of the images, which were built up with layers of paint aswell as other materials. Thus the paintings were built up like collages.

His work were also sometimes surrounded by controversy. In 1999 his painting "The Virgin Mary" was exhibited at the Brooklyn Musem of Art. This resulted in a lawsuit between the Mayor of New York City and the museum as the painting depicted a black madonna surrounded by offensive images, closeups of the female gentalia, pornographic images cut out of magazines as well as elephant dung.
image: She, 1997, Chris Ofili, Courtesy of Chris Ofili
                                                         Courtesy of Chris Ofili / Afroco



References




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