Chris Ofili

Mono Turquesa 1999-2002

© Courtesy Chris Ofili - Afroco and Victoria Miro Gallery. Photo: Dave Lambert, Rod Tidnam

Oil, acrylic, glitter, graphite, fibre tip pen, elephant dung, polyester resin and map pins on canvas

1832 x 1228 mm support: 2442 x 1830 mm

Chris Ofili

Mono Rosa 1999-2002

© Courtesy Chris Ofili - Afroco and Victoria Miro Gallery. Photo: Dave Lambert, Rod Tidnam

Oil, acrylic, glitter, graphite, fibre tip pen, elephant dung, polyester resin and map pins on canvas

1832 x 1228 mm support: 2442 x 1830 mm

Chris Ofili

Mono Oro 1999-2002
© Courtesy Chris Ofili - Afroco and Victoria Miro Gallery. Photo: Dave Lambert,
Rod Tidnam
1832 x 1228 mm, support: 2442 x 1830 mm

There are a number of factors about Chris Ofili's work I really admire and inspire me. First of all the use of elephant dung in this work. When I saw Chris' work in an exhibition in Tate Britian over 2 years ago I was compelled by the non conventional use of materials and how he had made the elephant dung so beautiful and relevant to his practice. His paintings are so rich, colourful and exotic and have many layers which add more depth. The monkey canvases were displayed seperately in their own temple/shrine, if you like and this is something I would really like to recreate in my exhibition that I will hold in March/April this year. I really want to create a sacred place where the audience feel that they are experoiencing something great or sacred. I think much of this can be achived bt the room settings, the lighting and the way I position my objects . Over the next few weeks I want to concentrate on the type of characters/god like figures that I want to represent in this way.

'The Upper Room' consists of thirteen paintings displayed in an environment especially designed by the architect David Adjaye. When it was first publicly exhibited in 2002, critics commented on the chapel-like qualities of the space and its lighting. The arrangement of twelve canvases flanking a thirteenth larger one suggests Christ and his Apostles, and the arrangement has an extraordinary sensory effect.

Chris Ofili

The Upper Room 1999-2002

                                    © Courtesy Chris Ofili - Afroco and Victoria Miro Gallery

Below are photographs taken in the photography suite in the LSAD on the 10/02/2012. The photographs were taken with a wite backdrop as a starting point for me to both learn how to use the photography facilities within the university and also to enable me to play about with different compositions against a neutral backround to explore all the possibilites and get some imagery to display at my Friday pop up session. The photographs were taken within a small time frame but was a useful way of getting quick results. The photographs show a collection of discarded wooden and metal objects that I collected from a scaffording yard JPS on the Dock Road Liverpool. They each are objects that had a specific use in the past and were part of the shipping industrey in Liverpool in some way or form. They had been outdoors for years ageing and weathering. I am interested in the environment and the way we live in a consumer driven environment and how almost everything we own is becoming disposable. What I am trying to do in this project, I suppose is to rescue these objects and transform them into something new and appreciated or desired. As I have taken these raw materials out of their home/environment/context, anywhere new I place them will give them a new meaning than the one they had before, if any, so this is the point I am at, considering what story or interpretation I want to give them.

I would like to put various found objects and materials together to create figurative pieces so that they take on individual personalities/charaters/roles. And I would like to display them ideally in a dark surrounding, an intimate place where people can come to respect, admire and contemplate the figures, sort of like a shrine or temple. This idea is heavily influenced by an exhibition I have been to by Chris Ofili and also by my interest in the Hindu religion and philosphy and the difference between Western and Eastern cultures.