Chris Ofili is all too aware of ethnic categorizing in the art world, which expects a black artist to be naïve, tribal or shamanistic, as he declares about his six week trip to Zimbabwe: "It's a great country, but it's a foreign country for me and the idea of looking for your roots and stuff is ridiculous." http://www.chrisofiliprints.info/biography.php?cur=EUR.
Chris Ofili's paintings are concerned with issues of black identity and experience and frequently employ racial stereotypes in order to challenge them. Thus in the painting 'Afrodizzia' (1996; London, Saatchi Gal.), the work makes reference to the stereotype of black sexual potency, and magazine cut-out faces are given 1970s Afro hairstyles, their names written in pinheads on lumps of dung. Chris Ofili draws on a wide range of cultural references; from the Bible to jazz and hip hop music, from Blake and Rodin to pornographic magazines. http://www.chrisofiliprints.info/biography.php?cur=EUR
Chris Ofili's paintings are concerned with issues of black identity and experience and frequently employ racial stereotypes in order to challenge them. Thus in the painting 'Afrodizzia' (1996; London, Saatchi Gal.), the work makes reference to the stereotype of black sexual potency, and magazine cut-out faces are given 1970s Afro hairstyles, their names written in pinheads on lumps of dung. Chris Ofili draws on a wide range of cultural references; from the Bible to jazz and hip hop music, from Blake and Rodin to pornographic magazines. http://www.chrisofiliprints.info/biography.php?cur=EUR
RSS Feed