Chris Ofili

[1] Ofili was for some years educated at St. Pius X High School for Boys, and then at Xaverian College in Victoria Park, Manchester.

[1] Ofili visited Trinidad for the first time in 2000, when he was invited by an international art trust to attend a painting workshop in Port of Spain.

[1] In 2014, art critic Roberta Smith held that Ofili has much in common with painters like Mickalene Thomas, Kerry James Marshall, Robert Colescott and Ellen Gallagher, and with more distant precedents such as Bob Thompson, Beauford Delaney and William H.

In 1998, Ofili won the Turner Prize, and in 2003 he was selected to represent Britain at the Venice Biennale of that year, where his work for the British Pavilion was done in collaboration with the architect David Adjaye.

[8] Ofili's paintings also make reference to blaxploitation films and gangsta rap, seeking to question racial and sexual stereotypes in a humorous way.

[8] Ofili's work is often built up in layers of paint, resin, glitter, dung (mainly elephant) and other materials to create a collage.

[10] This project involved the coming together of artists, producers and musicians of minority ethnic groups (Asian and African) in an attempt to expose the music that may be unheard in other spaces.

[13] Ofili was appointed Commander of the Order of the British Empire (CBE) in the 2017 New Year Honours for services to art.

The painting depicted a Black Madonna surrounded by images from blaxploitation movies and close-ups of female genitalia cut from pornographic magazines, and elephant dung.

[19] These were formed into shapes reminiscent of the cherubim and seraphim commonly depicted in images of the Immaculate Conception and the Assumption of Mary.

[24] In 2015, art collector David Walsh sold Ofili's 8-foot-tall The Holy Virgin Mary for 2.9 million pounds at Christie's.