The exhibition at Tate Britain brought together a collection of paintings from the 1990's along with his recent works created in Trinidad where he now lives. There were also drawings and watercolours, in fact a celebration of his career so far.
On entering the gallery I was drawn to his sculpture "shit head", which was a ball of elephant dung with human teeth and hair attached to it. I read, later, that the hair was his own. This amused me slightly, as maybe the sculpture was a self portrait.
I was touched by his work "No woman, no cry"- a portrait of murdered teenager Stephen Lawrence's mother Doreen, which included small photographs of her son in the teardrops that fall down her face.
The titles of some of his paintings; for example, "seven bitches tossing their pussies before the divine dung" looked oddly placed on the pristine white walls of Tate Britain- probably more at home in Tate Modern, I thought, along with the elephant dung.
His depiction of women in some of his early works is ambiguous. Pornographic imagery next to beautiful images of women such as Blossom.
He says his use of pornography came from his days living in Kings Cross, where he was amongst the street life of prostitutes and pimps. His depiction of the Virgin Mary as a black African surrounded by pornographic imagery caused a stir when it was exhibited as part of the Sensation exhibition at the Brooklyn Museum, New York. Mayor Guiliani complained about the painting and threatened to withdraw funding from the museum for exhibiting it. Ofili said, when talking about this conflicting imagery in Parkett Magazine in 2000, "It's about the way the black woman is talked about in hip hop music. It's about my religious upbringing and confusion about the situation. The contradiction of a virgin mother. It's about stereotyping of the black female. It's about beauty. It's about caricature, and it's about just being confused."
The second half of the exhibition showed his watercolours, which, for a spell, I learned he was making daily.
Ten years worth of watercolours were exhibited at the museum Harlem Studio in 2005. The show signalled the end of this process; something he missed but has been replaced now by sketchbooks and photography.
One of the rooms in the exhibition was a specially constructed vault designed by architect David Adjaye. The works in this space were named "The upper room".
It consisted of thirteen paintings lifted from the ground by elephant dung. Based on an Andy Warhol collage of a monkey clutching a chalice, these works repeat the same image in various colours along the colour wheel. The wooden walls and benches in this space enhance the spiritual and grotesque ambience these paintings conjured up for me.
His move to Trinidad in 2005 had a huge influence on his work as evidenced in the final two rooms of the exhibition. Nature and especially light have taken over from the urban sprawl. Gone are the hip hop references that played such a strong part in his early works. I particularly liked the blue paintings, where Ofili has experimented with a limited palate of blue, dark blue and silver. It struck a chord with me, as recently I have tried to limit my colour palate, having previously been very colourful in my work. The ambiguous quality of the blue paintings (especially the Blue Riders), and their simplistic depiction of figures are raw, minimalist and add impact. The subject matter is hard to see amidst the blocks of colour, but the lines and sheen of these paintings I found wonderful.
The paintings in the final room, while some retained the bright colours seen throughout his career, seemed more parred back and subtle. The clutter of his earlier work and the elephant dung had gone. I wondered if that, like the watercolours at the Museum Harlem Studio, this exhibition signalled the end for Ofili of that period of his painting life. Leaving them behind, and moving into what seemed a more confident, mature approach to his work. His interest in mythology, island and spiritual ideas all shining through in his new works. I will leave you with a quote by Ofili which for me sums up his work today. I am sure we have so much more to see from him in the future.
"When you live somewhere like this you become aware of different types of energies. The place itself has an undeniable energy. The force of nature is overwhelming."
Bibliography:
Glover,M (2010) Shock and Awe, The Art of Chris Ofili. The Independant. [Internet] 22.1.2010, available at www.independant.co.uk/shock-and-awe-the-art-of-chris-ofili-1874739 [accessed April 2010]
Searle, A ( 2010) Chris Ofili heads into the shadows. Guardian.co.uk.[Internet] 25.1.2010, available at www.guardian.co.uk/guardian.co.uk/artanddesign/2010/jan/25/chris-ofili-tate
Vogel,C (2005) An artist's gallery of ideas; Chris Ofili's watercolours. The New York Times.[Internet] 5.5.2005, available at www.nytimes.com/2005/05/05/arts/05ofil.html [accessed April 2010]
Williams,E (2010) Creative Review [Internet] 26.11.2010, available at www.creativereview.co.uk/cr-blog/2010/january/chris-ofili-at-tate-britain [accessed April 2010]
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