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Chris Ofili .
I first came across Chris Ofili's work at the 'Sensation' art exhibition in the Royal Academy of Arts London. 'Space and 'Popcorn Tits' were among five of his latest works being shown in the gallery. These two paintings caught my attention immediately, as they seem to be very similar to the sort of images which I had taken an interest in during the last few years. Although much of his work seems to be 'in your face', bright, psychedelic and very detailed, there is a vast range of influences which one can see, when looking closely into an Ofili masterpiece. The sheer depth and detail is something which astonishes most people when seen first-hand, and these factors are what drew me to his work.
The second time I saw Chris Ofili's work was at the Southampton City Art Gallery. Here there was a much wider range of Ofili's work on show. As well as his paintings, many of his drawings and sketches were on display. Ofili uses a great deal of his drawings as ideas which like many others - he follows through in paintings. At Southampton works such as 'Blossom' were on view, as well as the series of 'Captain Shit' paintings. All of Ofili's paintings seem to follow similar themes. They are about racism, pornography, exploitation, and the typical image of the black gangster. They cover areas such as prostitution and pimping along with rap music, and black creativeness.
It has been said that Ofili's work shows no progression, and that his paintings are merely labour-intensive decorative pieces, however when looking through his work in a chronological order I can see a definite journey from densely layered abstract paintings, through to figurative paintings. This progression was made all the more clear when I visited his most recent exhibition at the Serpentine Gallery in London. His new work uses simple abstract shapes to describe say, hair, a leg or a breast. These shapes are painted as a densely beaded surface like a mosaic and the shapes together create a flat graphic image. It is true to say, however, that Ofili's technical style has not changed dramatically in the last five years, but why should it have? His technique has developed and whilst parts of his style have become more refined others have become less so. Each painting of his seems to be more finely tuned than the previous one - bringing in new ideas and discarding others.
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Many critics feel that Ofili is a very talented, creative, and interesting painter, pushing the boundaries of canvas painting and decoration in a new direction, which has not been investigated to date. However there are also people who would disagree, and say that "Ofili's work is little more than decorative and labour-intensive art which speaks of nothing more than porn magazine collections and hip hop fanaticism." I feel that Ofili's work shows a huge range of influences and he uses and displays these in a way that is innovative and original. However, I feel that aspects of his work such as his dots, which have become a trademark of his art are not particularly original to himself. He has said that the dot's (along with the Elephant dung) highlight his interest in his own ethnic origins, and that he uses these influences in his art to express his black artists presence in a white artists world. This; I feel, is perhaps a slight misinterpretation on Ofili's side because he uses the dots in a decorative way - and he speaks of them being used in a decorative manner in the Matopo caves by ancient man. Further research leads me to believe that the dots were not used for decoration, but to signify the spiritual visions and hallucinations of the San people of Zimbabwe.
The San people are better known as the 'Bushmen', and it was artistic cave paintings of these early people which captured Ofili's imagination when he visited Zimbabwe in 1992 on a painting scholarship sponsored by Absolut vodka. The San had used dots in the paintings to try and represent the unrepresentable appearance of the spiritual dimension. They were like a code which the Bush men used which others of their kind would interpret as spiritual and not decorative. Since seeing the cave paintings, Ofili's work began to feature myriads of brightly coloured dots.
He seems to use an amalgamation of ideas taken from other sources such as magazines and other artists work, many of which are still in their original undeveloped form to create an overall result which is original to himself - he is, in musical turns a DJ - who uses samples of other people's work, and changes them to suit his own purposes.
Analysis of Mouini Thi.
Mouini Thi (1996) is, like all Ofili's exhibited paintings, created with acrylic, oil, resin, and elephant dung. It measures six by four feet which is large but not uncommon for Ofili's work. I have chosen Mouini Thi as a starting point in Ofili's career because it is my favourite piece out of the prefigurative section. This section of ranges from works of 1993 such as Painting with shit on it, through to the paintings of 1996 which include Blind popcorn and Afrodizzia.
It appears to be a vortex shaped explosion of circular forms. Ofili uses his dot technique in the circles to create a detailed pattern which is multi-layered. The background to the piece is a mass of dark green lines in a 'swirly' formation. These lines are taken from studies of nature and it is possible to see the organic forms clearly in this piece. The colours which Ofili uses a in this painting are white, red, yellow, orange, dark green and lime green. These colours tell me more about his interests, and influences, as the combination of the colours ( particularly lime green and orange ) are very retro. Ofili is obviously interested in the retro world, as the colours, shapes, and psychedelic styles he uses all point to the Sixties and Seventies era. He even drives an old lime green Ford Capri and confesses to spending hours on end polishing his chrome bumpers.
Mouini Thi is more of a decorative piece than a descriptive one. There are three main layers to this painting, starting with the swirling patterns and moving to a circular explosion, and finally on top of this intense decoration are placed six large spherical pieces of elephant dung. I feel that Ofili has used elephant dung in quite an interesting way, as the dung, which is essentially a waste product, and in most communities, disposed of, is placed above the beautiful, textured paint. This seems to me, an interesting reversal of painting, when normally what is most beautiful is the first to be seen. The dung also plays an important part in the structure of the piece as a whole. Mouini Thi, like others, is placed on two balls of elephant dung, which leads me to question: Is it still a painting or has it become a sculpture or a piece of decorative, abstract furniture?
Analysis of 'Dream'
'Dream' is made up of circles within circles, densely swirling patterns which are made up of painted blobs and dots of colour, tiny glass beads and glittering discs. This intense surface density gives the picture a very peculiar quality of seeming to be very large, like a constellation of stars ( which has been used to great effect in Space Shit), but also very small, like millions of microbes seen under a microscope (an effects of Mouini Thi). Although the media, which Ofili uses could be seen as slightly gimmicky, in as far as the phosphorus paint and glitter is concerned, the artist has managed to reverse this and create something precious and jewel-like which is emphasised when propped up above the ground on two balls of dung.
When observing his paintings, people often seem to say something along the lines of 'interesting but what does it mean?' In Dream there is a political dimension to the picture. Ofili has used phosphorescent paint to draw the outline of a male figure over the female one. The this figure - his back is turned - is invisible during the day, at night the phosphorescent paint begins to glow in the dark. The idea, perhaps, is that by day the women dreams of has absent lover, and at night the lover dreams of her.
Richard Cork is a visual art critic who writes articles in the Times newspaper. I have chosen to use a particular article of his, as it sums up the main feelings of critics who are in favour of Chris Ofili: " Feeding off William Blake and Blaxploitation movies with equal relish Chris Ofili is one of the most inventive and original painters of his generation". Cork goes on to say that Ofili is far more complex, ambitious and engaging than his tabloid reputation suggests. Ofili's use of unconventional materials such as his elephant dung and map pins has only serve him well, as far as Cork is concerned: "But the truth is that dried gobbets of excrement are only one element of his work. Although their brute presence may offend viewers unaccustomed to confronting animal droppings on canvas, Ofili knows precisely how to incorporate them in paintings where intricacy and finesse count for more than scatological provocation."
This, I feel, is very true, as Chris Ofili manages to use elephant dung, which by all means is large and a grotesque, in a way which blends perfectly with the intricate details of his painting and collage. The dung is used in a decorative manner, as is everything else,. Critics in favour of his art suggests that the use of elephant dung in his work does not obscure a genuine artistic gift. I agree with this and feel that Ofili's work has matured over the last few years in a way which is far more coherent to the viewer. The elephant dung has never obscured his artistic talent, if anything, it has enhanced it,. When viewing all of Ofili's work I could see that his paintings have become more coherent. A majority of his works are colourful but incoherent psychedelic abstractions, which are of little particular interest and are lacking in theme. Pictures like 'Rara and Mala' 94 and 'Geetha' 96 are similar to Jimmy Hendrix album covers of the mid-Sixties. However, these are early works, and this incoherent psychedelia has matured over recent years to become a fascinating amalgamation of painting, decoration, and abstract sculpture. Richard Dorment of the Daily Telegraph goes as far as to call Ofili's painting 'Dream', beautiful. It is certainly one of the most impressive pieces, standing at 8 ft high. In terms of sheer visual punch Ofili's work is in a league of its own. From a distance it stands out, drawing you closer, and unlike many contemporary artists, Ofili does not let you down, as the closer you get, the more interesting the painting becomes. This is due to his technique which involves over laying a ground of varnished pigment and collage with further layers of acrylic and phosphorus paint, and finally the (odourless) elephant dung and glitter.
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