Chris Ofili Research Paper

William H. Johnson was a successful painter who was born on March 18, 1901 in Florence, South Carolina. Johnson began exploring his level of creativity as a child, and it only amplified from there because he discovered that he wanted to be an artist. After making this discovery he attended the National Academy of Design in New York which is where he met his mentor Charles Webster Hawthorne who had a strong influential impact on Johnson. Once Johnson graduated he moved to Paris where he was exposed to different artists, various artistic abilities, and evolutionary creations. Throughout Johnson’s time in Paris he grew as an artist, and adapted a “folk” style where he used lively colors and flat figures. Johnson used the “folk” style to express the experience of most African-Americans during the years of the 1930s and 1940s.

The three main elements of Cecily Brown’s work (figuration, tension, and abstraction) contain references to past artistic personas and movements. She is influenced by the dark expressiveness of Francisco Goya’s figures, Edgar Degas's creation of nearly sadistic scenes with strong colors, and the fluid vulgarity of Abstract Expressionism. The successful mixture of these elements has branded Brown as a “Neo-Expressionist” and as a result she has met much success in establishing a painting career in New York

One of the most intriguing and influential images included in Citizen by Claudia Rankine is the image entitled Blue Black Boy. Blue Black Boy is a visual work of art created by Carrie Mae Weems in 1990’s; Weems is a very successful female African American artist. Through a close reading of the image, I was able to derive meaning out of the various aspects that work together to create such an eloquent work of art.

Painter Chris Ofili is well known in his highly decorative style to playfully explore the notion of black cultural identity. British born to Nigerian parents artist Chris Ofili often makes work highlighting political conversations. In 1998 he won the Turner Prize, the painting No Woman, No Cry was one of the works included in exhibition which won him the prize. It was made while he was living and working in London, a time period of Ofili’s practice, beginning in 1996, in which he shifted from making predominantly abstract paintings with loosely representative elements to pictures that primarily focused on large scale individual figures. In particular, it is one of a number of paintings he made in 1998 and 1999 that depict black women from the chest upwards. No Woman, No Cry(fig 1) is a large, complex layered painting that depicts a crying black woman set in a background amongst various abstract patterns. The black woman is shown in profile wearing blue eye shadow, red lipstick, a string of coloured beads that form a necklace, the jewel of her necklace represented by ball of elephant dung frequently used in Ofili’s paintings. A stream of tears falls from her eyes, which all feature in their centre a very small photograph of a boys face. When exhibited, Ofili has also used elephant dung to make two rests on which to display the work while it leans against the gallery wall. No Woman, No Cry refers a to specific event in British social and political history, it

The Black Arts movement refers to a period of “furious flowering” of African American creativity beginning in the mid-1960’s and continuing through much of the 1970’s (Perceptions of Black). Linked both chronologically and ideologically with the Black Power Movement, The BAM recognized the idea of two cultural Americas: one black and one white. The BAM pressed for the creation of a distinctive Black Aesthetic in which black artists created for black audiences. The movement saw artistic production as the key to revising Black American’s perceptions of themselves, thus the Black Aesthetic was believed to be an integral component of the economic, political, and cultural empowerment of the Black

Kieran Tuouy`s sculpture, Thank you to the Choctaw, gave a sense of hope for the Irish. This sculpture was a gift for the Choctaw for raising $800 for the Irish in result of the famine and travel. Even though it is not a lot of money, this sculpture signifies the collective empowerment of different groups to persevere during oppressive times. Takaki points out other collaborations have happened in the past when he says “ Shared class exploitation often led workers to struggle together. In 1870, Chinese immigrant laborers were transported to Massachusetts as scabs to break an Irish immigrant; in response, the Irish tried to organize a Chinese lodge of the Knights of St. Crispin, and Irish labor union” (13). Before going to this exhibit, I only thought minorities would ban together for political purposes. Yet after seeing this artwork, I appreciated and understood that collectivism and integration can be represented through artistic works as well. Looking at this sculpture helped me to relate to these facts and events, and made me appreciate art as not only a talent, but also a way of making allies or a political gesture, in this case, from the

Kehinde Wiley’s early works were of people he pulled off the streets of Harlem. His art blurs the boundaries between traditional and contemporary modes of representation and the critical portrayal of the masculinity of black and brown men. Generally, western art has and does not focus on the narratives of people

Systematic racism continues to perpetuate the marginalization of people of color in the 21st century despite belief of living in a post racial society. This unfortunate reality is seen in many different forms of current culture. One of the ways systematic racism takes current form, is in the negative portrayal created by a single narrative, or the lack thereof, minority groups. This lack of representation or diversity of people of color in different forms of art and platforms, not only affects those subject to misrepresentation, but perpetuates negative attitudes and discriminatory behavior towards those subject to misrepresentation. It is necessary to look into the ways this single narrative in different art forms affects marginalized group, and the current move to dismantle the component power plays in who gets to tell these stories.

Society seems to change and advance so rapidly throughout the years but there has always seemed to be a history, present, and future when it comes to the struggles of the African Americans. The hatred of a skin tone has caused people to act in violent and horrifying ways including police brutality, riots, mass incarcerations, and many more. There are three movements the renaissance, civil rights, and the black lives matter movements that we have focused on. Our artist come from different eras but have at least one similarity which is the attention on black art.

Kehinde Wiley’s large-scale, brightly colored, highly patterned portraits of African American subjects are a salute to traditional portraiture as well as a critique of the art historical focus on the privileged male Caucasian. The artist scouts out ordinary black men of ages 18 to 25 from urban settings to copy poses from works by master Western painters like Titian and Jean-Auguste-Dominique Ingres. The photographs of their poses become Wiley’s references for his enormous, dazzlingly vibrant portraits. The extreme realism of the figure combined with intense color use, decorative patterning, and larger-than-life scale all emphasize the extravagant grandeur of power and male dominance. Wiley has radically shifted the paradigm to make a contemporary statement about the long absence of the black male figure in historical portraiture.

Sadly around his era, it was a dark time to be a Negro, the segregation, Jim Crow laws were all obstacles he had to overcome. Lawrence has given all his success to the black experience that is his heritage. His work showcased the struggles black Americans faced to obtain freedom, justice and equality. As time goes by Mr Lawrence broaden his horizon and started to paint piece that depicted both black and white faces. He once said, “to me, the black art label doesn’t matter, I work out of my own experiences, and if somebody want to call that black art, that’s all right”.

"...Our problem is to conceive, develop, establish an art era. Not white art painting black...let 's bare our arms and plunge them deep through laughter, through pain, through sorrow, through hope, through disappointment, into the very depths of the souls of our people and drag forth material crude, rough, neglected. Then let 's sing it, dance it, write it, paint it. Let 's do the impossible. Let 's create something transcendentally material, mystically objective. Earthy. Spiritually earthy. Dynamic." - Aaron Douglas.During the time of the harlem renaissance Aaron Douglas used his artwork to take pride in his african american culture. All of his artwork conveyed one common message and that was the role that African Americans played in society. All of this was seen in one of his major artworks which was the “Aspects of Negro Life,” mural on the 135th Street branch of the New York Public Library.

In the 1980’s the art world was gifted with the artist Jean michel basquiat. Basquiat, a man who lived two contrasting lives as street artist and “fine artist” in the art punk movement of the 1980’s. His work as a street artist was full of poetic and provocative messages painted in the streets of Manhattan New York, and his work as a “fine artist” did the same on gigantic canvases with looming figures in bold colours. Regardless of this dichotomy, his work in both of these practices has the ability to bring light to issues he and many others were facing and are still facing now. In particular, Basquiat’s work brought light to his personal experience with racism and struggle with otherness in and outside of the brutal art world. The next paragraphs will discuss how Jean Michel Basquiat delt and fought the oppressive systems of his time through his art.

In 1988 Gioiosa created an interesting and flashy painting of obscure shape; his painting was called Asterope. In a decade preoccupied with success and status, art got bigger in scope, ambition, theme, budget, promotion and cultural presence. Art became an extension of one's success or power (Gallery, The 80’s). In Asterope he uses bold neon colors clearly divided by lines to symbolize the bold and flamboyant times that were the 80’s. However in Of Beauty, Of Joy, Of Stillness, Of Love, the viewer can see a much more gradient and shaded look in the colors. Even though these two painting are very different, they both convey symbolism as a key role. In Asterope the viewer can see the bold colors as symbolism of the 80’s, and in Of Beauty, Of Joy, Of Stillness, Of Love the viewer sees a much bigger mandala as a symbol of a higher, more powerful being. “In essence I think of my work as an observation that interprets and reveals an ineffable presence. Through the living sense of paint I try to achieve tranquility and pure spacial awareness of an undiscovered landscape, an infinite void, that transcends physical time.” (Gioiosa, Rusti)

Art is something that can only be achieved with the manipulation of the imagination. This is successful when using objects, sounds, and words. Richard Wright and Amira Baraka brought the power of art into the limelight. Wright’s perception of art was for it to be used as a means of guidance, one that could uplift the Negro towards bigger and better goals. Baraka’s perspective of art was for it to be used as an active agent, one that could kill and then imprint society permanently. Baraka and Wright both wanted the Negro to see that there was a much brighter future ahead of them. Both wanted art to leave a stain, a stain that could not be easily erased, washed, or bleached. Both believed that Black Art had no need to be silent but instead daring.