Analysis Of Chris Ofili s No Woman No Cry - 1697 Words

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