Chris Ofili was born to Nigerian Catholic parents in Manchester, England on 10 October 1968. One of the most acclaimed British artists of his generation, in 1998 he became the first black artist and first painter in 13 years to win the Turner Prize and in 2003 was chosen to represent Great Britain at the 50th Venice Biennale. His work is held in numerous UK public collections including the Arts Council Collection, the British Museum, the British Council Collection, National Portrait Gallery, Tate, the V&A and the Whitworth Art Gallery.
Painter and draughtsman Chris Ofili was born to Nigerian Catholic parents on 10 October 1968 in Manchester, England. After taking an art foundation course at Tameside College of Technology he fell in love with painting and abandoned the idea of pursing a furniture design course and becoming a carpenter. Of learning how to paint Ofili reflects, ‘Not only was it something completely new, but it was something that allowed me to investigate further into who I am’ (Christy Lange and Chris Ofili, In Search of the Real Me, Tate Etc, 1 January 2010). In 1991 he completed a BA in Fine Art at Chelsea School of Art in London where he befriended Scottish-Canadian painter Peter Doig. In 1992 he went to Zimbabwe to study ancient cave paintings, returning with balls of elephant dung in his suitcase. Initially he displayed them at Brixton market, before beginning to feature them in his paintings (using a regular supply from London Zoo). He graduated from the Royal College of Art, London with an MA in Fine Art in 1993 and in 1994, had a one-year exchange scholarship to Universität der Künste Berlin, in Germany.
In 1997 Ofili's work was included in renowned art collector Charles Saatchi's groundbreaking Sensation! show at the Royal Academy of Arts in London, alongside work by Damien Hirst, Tracey Emin, Marcus Harvey and the Chapman Brothers, who would become known collectively as the Young British Artists (YBAs). The exhibition caused near universal outrage, not least because among these pieces was Ofili's The Holy Virgin Mary, which incorporated pornographic images and the artist’s trademark use of elephant dung. In 1998, aged 30, Ofili became the first black artist and the first painter in 13 years to win the Turner Prize, partly for his indelible tribute to black teenager Stephen Lawrence (No Woman, No Cry, 1998) who was murdered in a racially motivated attack while waiting for a bus in south east London. In 2000 he made his first visit to Trinidad to host a workshop in Port of Spain, with fellow Chelsea art school alumnus, Peter Doig. In 2002 he married Roba El-Essawy, a singer and songwriter from London hip-hop outfit Attica Blues and in 2005 they moved to Trinidad, where they had two children. One of the most acclaimed British artists of his generation, in 2003 Ofili was chosen to represent Great Britain at the 50th Venice Biennale where he presented an ambitious installation entitled Within Reach.
Collaborative projects have included Metamorphosis: Titian 2012, in which contemporary artists were invited by London's National Gallery and Royal Opera House to respond to Titian's works as part of the Cultural Olympiad. Ofili worked alongside choreographers and dancers from The Royal Ballet on sets and costumes for a new ballet Diana & Actaeon, as well as a substantial suite of paintings and works on paper inspired by Ovid's Metamorphoses. In 2010 Tate Britain hosted a major career survey, bringing together over 45 paintings, pencil drawings and watercolours from the mid-1990s which demonstrated the artist’s diverse sources of inspiration: Zimbabwean cave painting, blaxploitation movies, comic book heroes, jazz and hip-hop music, the Bible, and works of artist and poet William Blake. Despite adopting a simplified colour palette and featuring pared-down forms, Ofili's recent works are similarly full of references to sensual and Biblical themes as well as to Trinidad’s landscape and mythology. About such work Ofili observes, ‘I’m using the material differently now, so I have to think more […] I keep more sketchbooks, and I make drawings of alternative ideas for images that I’m working on, which allows me to develop images with a more automatic, stream-of-consciousness approach. And I’ve been photographing a lot more here – thousands of photographs a year’ (Christy Lange and Chris Ofili, Tate Etc, 1 January 2010). A major exhibition of Ofili’s work entitled Weaving Magic was held at the National Gallery in 2017.
Ofili's colourful and ornamented expression of black identity remains extremely important for British artists of colour. In the words of his friend, architect David Adjaye, Ofili ‘positioned himself as an artist who could redefine art practice by affirming the relevance of painting for the 21st century’ (Chris Ofili, The Art Story), inspiring a new generation of painters from both sides of the Atlantic. Ofili kept the family house in Hackney and continues to work in London and New York while being based in Trinidad. His work is held in numerous UK public collections including the Arts Council Collection, British Museum, British Council Collection, National Portrait Gallery, Tate, V&A (all London) and the Whitworth Art Gallery, Manchester.
Consult items in the Ben Uri archive related to [Chris Ofili]
Publications related to [Chris Ofili] in the Ben Uri Library