Chris Ofili, Harvester, 2021 © Chris Ofili, courtesy of the artist and Victoria Miro
Chris Ofili has selected a number of his own watercolours and sketches that resonate with the works of William Blake
‘I first came across William Blake’s work at the Tate Gallery around the time I began studying art in 1987, whilst I was living in Manchester. I was drawn in by the beautiful line and gentle use of colour, and by how the figures, the landscape and the symbolism all metamorphose fluidly into each other.’
Ofili freely mixes influences from diverse sources to create works that are partly figurative and partly abstract. European art history is combined with African American and Black British popular culture, while Biblical stories flow into Caribbean folklore and Greek myths. Like the artworks of William Blake (on display next door), Ofili’s art is vibrant, symbolic, and frequently mysterious in nature. It plays on ideas of beauty while carrying messages about history and exoticism.
‘I’m always shocked by how imaginative Blake is, how free and open the work is, and how he’s describing this world in what appears to be a kind of fairytale world.’
Ofili became well known for his complex multi-layered paintings. His works were often made with a signature combination of resin, glitter, collage, and elephant dung. His more recent works adopt simple, pared-down forms while continuing to be just as expansive, dramatic, and romantic.
Born in Manchester in 1968, Chris Ofili currently lives and works in Trinidad.
George Stubbs, A Grey Hunter with a Groom and a Greyhound at Creswell Crags c.1762–4
A grey horse stands in front of Creswell Crags, a picturesque limestone gorge on the border of Derbyshire and Nottinghamshire. The horse has a stocky build and short legs, making it suited to clambering over rocks and moorland to follow the greyhound. The horse is likely to belong to a nobleperson, but is shown here in the presence of a groom or hunt servant. This person would have been responsible for cleaning the stables and caring for the horses.
Gallery label, September 2024
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artworks in Chris Ofili
George Stubbs, Otho, with John Larkin up 1768
This painting shows a winning thoroughbred racehorse called Otho. He is pictured at Newmarket racecourse where he had his greatest successes. Otho’s powerful frame highlights the slenderness of the jockey, John Larkin. Dramatic and poetic elements, such as the moody sky and tension of Otho’s pricked ears, elevate Stubbs’s painting above conventional equine portraiture. Stubbs was commissioned to paint this work a year after Otho’s racing career ended and he retired to stud. This describes a horse that no longer races but is kept for breeding the next generation of race horses.
Gallery label, September 2024
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artworks in Chris Ofili
Mark Wallinger, Half-Brother (Exit to Nowhere - Machiavellian) 1994–5
The two horses that make up this painting were derived from photographs in the official record of Thoroughbred stallions. ‘Half-Brother’ is a racing term that denotes horses that have the same mother. The brood mare Coup de Folie was the dam (mother) of the colts depicted here. They are direct descendants of Eclipse, painted by Stubbs. Wallinger says, ‘There is also something of Consequences here – both the game [where players draw separate parts of a body] and the very notion of “good breeding”. Plus, in a bathetic undertone, the painting suggests the two participants that make up a pantomime horse.’
Gallery label, September 2024
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artworks in Chris Ofili
George Stubbs, Horse Attacked by a Lion 1769
This is the second in a sequence of three in Stubbs‘s horse and lion series. In the first, a horse rears back at the sight of an approaching lion. In this, the second, the lion pounces on the petrified horse. Stubbs minimises the landscape and cuts off the corners of the canvas to emphasise the action and horror of the scene. The third in the sequence shows the lion bringing the horse to its knees. Stubbs produced the series in a range of formats and techniques. It is Stubbs’s earliest known attempt at painting in enamel colour pigments – a technique previously limited to decorative objects. Unlike oil paint, enamel doesn’t fade.
Gallery label, September 2024
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artworks in Chris Ofili
George Stubbs, Bay Hunter by a Lake 1787
This horse is identified as a ‘bay’– a horse characterised by a reddish-brown coat with black colouring on the mane, tail, ear edges and lower legs. Its ears are cropped and its tail docked, in accordance with 18th-century fashion. Stubbs’s earlier horse portraits usually showed the animal accompanied by a groom, stable boy, jockey or owner. However, in many later works, including this one, the horse is shown alone. The body of water in the background in this work is typical of Stubbs’s sublime landscapes in the 1780s and 90s.
Gallery label, September 2024
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artworks in Chris Ofili
Art in this room
George Stubbs
A Grey Hunter with a Groom and a Greyhound at Creswell Crags
c.1762–4
George Stubbs
Otho, with John Larkin up
1768
Mark Wallinger
Half-Brother (Exit to Nowhere - Machiavellian)
1994–5
George Stubbs
Horse Attacked by a Lion
1769
George Stubbs
Bay Hunter by a Lake
1787