The Turder Prize-1998

CHRIS OFILI, WINNER OF THE TURDER PRIZE

An artists work is often identified by a particular trademark which, in retrospect, seems to have initiated their beginnings as an artist. In Chris Ofilis case, elephant dung has taken on this value. Whilst on holiday in Africa in 1992, Ofili was so struck by these animal droppings that he collected a big sackful of them and brought them home. He thought that if he covered them in resin and brightly coloured beads, they would make really smart paper weights which he could sell on a market stall. Unfortunately no one bought them and they were left gathering dust in his garage.

Several months later, Ofili was faced with a problem whilst in the middle of fitting a new Ikea kitchen. He had decided to paint the panels of his new BOLAK units prior to fitting, but wondered how he could avoid getting lines on the garage floor where he was planning to leave the panels drying against the wall. With characteristic ingenuity, Ofili propped up each of the panels on two mounds of elephant dung, thereby overcoming the problem. When however his close friend Lucy Honeychurch, fine art critic for the lancet, saw the panels the next day, she was thrilled. 'This work is wonderful Chris', she enthused. 'Well, I think it'll look smart with the blown vinyl wallpaper I've selected', Ofili replied. ' Mmm, blown vinyl. Nice touch' murmured Miss Honeychurch as she stroked her chin and stared at the panels. She continued, 'Some might see the inclusion of elephant dung, with it's associations of excretion and the olfactory, as being a degradation of the sublime surface of painting. However, glistening with resin and decorated with coloured beads, these excretions acquire a magical jewel-like quality that transforms their base origins. By means of these excrescences, these paintings give rise to a veritable theatre of sensory experience, incorporating allusions to touch and smell as well as offering a dizzying array of visual stimulation'.

Within weeks of this 'road to Damascus' experience, Ofili had installed himself in a bohemian garret in Londons Kings cross and began creating his art in a rented studio in an adjacent warehouse. Because the elephant dung had made such a big impression on Miss Honeychurch, he decided to incorporate it into the paintings themselves as well as using it to prop them up. In fact his first piece, Shit Head, simply consisted of an elephant turd decorated with baby teeth and some of his own dreadlocks. The tongue-in-cheek humour with which it addresses black cultural stereotypes is a quality that traverses much of Ofilis oeuvre. This work was very well received by the London art establishment, some of whom began to give him valuable advice and encouragement. 'There's nothing I like better than a good old poo-pic' art critic Brian Sewell was heard to utter one evening at a party hosted by Jasper Conran.

Because Ofili couldn't paint very well, he created his art mainly by the use of collage techniques and thick layers of resin. Beads and photographs cut from magazines, along with the obligatory elephant dung feature strongly in his work. The method stood him in good stead and throughout the mid 1990's he generated an impressive body of work. A fine example from this period is Popcorn Tits, in which the repetitive dots and concentric circular forms that surround the collaged cutouts of female breasts make the latter, at one time erupt like sunbursts, at another hide coquettishly amongst the red popcorn shapes. Here also, the dung mounds are incorporated more into the overall imagery than in many of his works, metaphorically functioning as breasts.

Ofilis influences are multifarious but in recent years, references such as blaxploitation films, hip-hop and pornography feature strongly. Blossom for instance is derived from an image of a model in a porn magazine mixed with another image of the supermodel Naomi Campbell. The resulting hybrid image exudes a strange mix of sexual availability and maternal leanings, signified by a bare breast. The work also inadvertently refers to other images in art history which depict women with one breast bared - as a sign of untrammeled sexuality in the work of French post-impressionist Paul Gaga and as a sign of maternal nurturing in the fifteenth century painting of the Madonna and child by a follower of Robert Tampon in the National Gallery. This mixture of the sacred and the profane is a preoccupation of Ofilis work.

Ofili has said that he can make versions of other peoples art works but charge them with his own agenda. Rather than downright plagiarism, this borrowing of styles and images should be viewed as truly Postmodern. The adoration of Captain Shit and the Legend of the Black Stars is perhaps Ofilis most famous work to date. It is derived from a painting by one of his favourite artists, the adoration of the calf by Francis Peekaboo. Ofili substitutes his black superhero, Captain Shit for the calf-headed figure in Peekaboo's painting. Captain Shit is in turn derived from a heady combination of mythical macho stars from blaxploitation films and comic books. The piece is a wonderful example of Ofilis humorous mixings and samplings which both blaspheme and venerate their sources in a way that is entirely appropriate to the condition of being an artist in a Post-Colonial global universe.

We at MartyCam would like to congratulate Chris Ofili on winning the Turder prize and look forward to him producing more thought provoking work in the future. Apparently, he has already been commissioned to produce a new portrait of Richard the third and we wish him every success with this project.