Chris Ofili No title (from Cubitt Print Box) 1999 - 2000 © Chris Ofili. Courtesy the artist, Cubitt Gallery, London and Victoria Miro, London

Biography

Born 1968
Nationality English
Birth place Manchester, England

Ofili graduated from the Chelsea School of Art in 1991 and received an M.F.A. from the Royal College of Art in 1993. He became known for his colourful and intricate paintings, made with an inventive range of media: resin, glitter, map-pins, magazine cut-outs and, often, elephant dung. These playful and symbolically layered early works drew from a wide range of influences, from Zimbabwean cave painting to blaxploitation genre movies, pornographic imagery and hip-hop culture. Following his move to Trinidad in 2005, he simplified his colour palette and began to use pared-down forms. Since then he has continued to draw on diverse sources of inspiration, referencing Biblical themes, Ovid’s Metamorphoses, as well as Trinidad’s landscape, mythology and carnival culture. One of the most acclaimed British painters of his generation, in 1998 Ofili won the Turner Prize and represented Great Britain at the 2003 Venice Biennale.