Chris Ofili
Turner Prize winner whose glittering, resin-layered paintings stood on lumps of elephant dung.
Chris Ofili was born in Manchester in 1968 to Nigerian parents and studied at Chelsea and the Royal College. A travel scholarship to Zimbabwe in 1992 introduced the material that made him notorious: elephant dung, dried, varnished and used both as collaged elements within the picture and as the supports the canvases rest on instead of hanging. The paintings layer resin, glitter, map pins, magazine cuttings and dots of paint into surfaces that shift as you move. He won the Turner Prize in 1998; The Holy Virgin Mary caused a political row in New York the following year. He has lived in Trinidad since 2005.
The construction is the condition issue. Resin layers yellow and can craze, glitter and collaged paper lift, and the dung supports are integral to the work and are frequently damaged or, worse, treated as packing and discarded. These are not works that can be casually reframed or restored. The paintings are unique. There is a smaller body of watercolours, drawings — the Afromuses portraits are numerous — and editioned prints. Signature and date are usually on the reverse, and gallery provenance is the normal documentary spine.
If you own a work by Chris Ofili
Send photographs and whatever paperwork came with it. The first question is what the work actually is — edition or unique, when, and in what condition — because everything else follows from the answer. A valuation costs nothing and commits you to nothing.
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Whitebank Fine Art is an art advisory and gallery, not an auction house, and is not affiliated with any auction house or with the artist, their estate or their representatives. This page describes the range we advise on. Nothing here is investment advice.