Ofili, Chris (1968 - )

Known as 'Captain Shit' by Matthew Collings, ('This is Modern Art', London 1999), Chris Ofili is an artist who despite using elephant dung as one of his media, creates beautiful and luminous paintings. Born to Nigerian parents in Manchester in 1968, Ofili studied at the Royal College of Art towards the end of the 1980s. A visit to Zimbabwe in 1992 where he saw Matopos dot paintings provides an obvious influence for his peculiar style, as does the elephant dung he brought back in his suitcase. This was laid out on a cloth in Berlin and London street markets just to encourage some kind of response - the advertisement following the display initiated a career that has taken him all over the world. His paintings are bright, fun, carnivalesque and decorative displays of beauty. He is one of the major Young British Artists whose career is at its peak winning the Turner Prize in 1998.