In Tate Britain
Walk Through British Art: Sixty years
Free entry- Artist
- Chris Ofili born 1968
- Medium
- Oil paint and charcoal on canvas
- Dimensions
- Support: 2797 x 1985 mm
- Collection
- Tate
- Acquisition
- Presented by the artist 2014
- Reference
- T14031
Online caption
This work draws from the character of the blue devil in folklore from Trinidad, where Ofili lives. At carnival time, people from the town of Paramin dress up as devils and cover themselves in blue paint terrorising onlookers with blood, snakes and frogs. In the tradition of carnival, these blue ‘devils’ have permission to behave in a menacing and intrusive manner that would normally be prohibited by society. Ofili associates them with the ‘boys in blue’, the British police. The barely discernible images in the painting suggest a misconduct occurring in a state of near invisibility.
Explore
- emotions, concepts and ideas(16,052)
- emotions and human qualities(5,311)
- aggression(103)
- fear(265)
- emotions and human qualities(5,311)
- people(35,419)
- work and occupations(14,327)
- crime and punishment(441)
- policeman / woman(108)
- crime and punishment(441)
- religion and belief(8,366)
- magic and occultism(652)
- demon(27)
- universal religious imagery(869)
- devil(75)
- magic and occultism(652)
- society(35,071)
- social comment(6,483)
- persecution(99)
- prejudice(76)
- race(380)
- social comment(6,483)
- abstraction(9,749)
- non-representational(6,603)
- colour(2,440)
- from recognisable sources(4,472)
- figure(2,244)
- non-representational(6,603)
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