View by Year  |  A-Z List of Artists

Chris Ofili
Shortlisted: 1998

Chris Ofili says 'the way I work comes out of experimentation, but it also comes out of a love of painting, a love affair with painting.' He mixes a wide range of cultural references, from the Bible to pornographic magazines, from 1970s comics to the work of artists such as William Blake. He also experiments outside the traditional confines of oil paint, introducing things like elephant dung into his work; he enjoys the tension between the beautiful paint surfaces and the perceived ugliness of the dung.

No Woman, No Cry 1998 Acrylic, oil and mixed media on canvas 243.8 x 182.8 cm Tate. Purchased 1999 © Courtesy of the Victoria Miro Gallery, London Photo: Courtesy Victoria Miro Gallery, London

Chris Ofili was born in Manchester, England in 1968. From 1988 to 1991 he attended Chelsea School of Art, and continued his studies at the Royal College of Art until 1993. He won the Turner Prize in 1998 for his 'inventiveness, exuberance, humour and technical richness in painting,' as seen in his exhibitions held at Southhampton City Art Gallery, and in Sensation at the Royal Academy.

This information has been taken from The Turner Prize: Twenty Years, by Virginia Button, Tate Publishing, 2003.

View Chris Ofili in the Tate Collection