Tuesday, October 21, 2008

Chris Ofili


Last night I went to go hear Chris Ofili speak at the Distinguished Scholars program that SFAI was hosting. In case you don't  know who this artist is, he is the British painter whom incorporates elephant dung into his work. One of his most notorious pieces is the top image, his interpretation of The Virgin Mary. 
He spoke with candor and clarity last night about many facets of his life and work.  About becoming an artist, as a way to experience freedom, as opposed to other career fields where there seem to be right and wrong ways of doing things. About his first painting with the elephant dung.... On a trip to study art in Zimbabwe, he first saw it and used it when  he was in a period of experimenting with more abstract work. When he said that when he paints his eyes very simply or leaves them as extremely flat, that he is in fact thinking about going inward or having the painting being all about what the viewer sees/experiences was fascinating, considering that the majority of his work includes elephant dung. By painting what you know and obsess about it makes sense that eventually, as an ex-altar boy and someone who spent the majority of his formative years in Catholic schools, his work would begin to deal with the dichotomies of the Virgin Mother.
By including such an offensive substance in his work, he has virtually guaranteed that his work will be associated with a kind of vulgarity that most find outrageously hilarious, degrading or avant-garde. 

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