His name is Christopher Ofili, although he is better known as Chris Ofili. He is an English Turner Prize winning painter (picture the Turners as the Oscars or Grammys of painting) who is best known for his paintings incorporating elephant dung. Yes, you heard that well.
And he made TIME’s list of 100 Most Influential People, joining the likes of Barack Obama, Kanye West, Beyonce and Kevin Hart.
He is also Nigerian.
Here are 8 things you need to know about Chris Ofili.
1. He was born on the 10th of October 1968 in Manchester, England
2. When he was eleven, his father left the family and moved back to Nigeria
3. He attended some of the prestigious art schools – the Chelsea School of Art (1988 to 1991) and at the Royal College of Art (1991 to 1993).
4. After falling in love with the country on a visit in 2000, he now lives in Port of Spain, Trinidad and Tobago in the Caribbean.
5. He won the Turner Prize in 1988, the first black artist to do so.
6. According to Wikipedia, Ofili’s work is often built up in layers of paint, resin, glitter, dung (mainly elephant) and other materials to create a collage.
7. His most controversial work was one of his paintings, The Holy Virgin Mary, a depiction of the Virgin Mary, which became the subject of a lawsuit between the mayor of New York City, Rudy Giuliani, and the Brooklyn Museum of Art when it was exhibited there in 1999.
And,
8. A large, new Ofili painting—usually made about four or five times a year—goes for between four hundred thousand ($400,000) and six hundred thousand dollars ($600,000) apiece.
Plus,
9. He told the New Yorker that he has never been to Nigeria – in part because of his relationship with his father, who went on to have another family back here.
The post #TIME100: Meet Chris Ofili, The Award Winning Nigerian Painter You’ve Probably Never Heard Of appeared first on Ekekeee.