'Weaving Magic' - New Exhibit of Chris Ofili's artwork

British painter Chris Ofili's next exhibition is scheduled at the National Gallery, in London, this coming spring. Already rejoicing!

Chris Ofili: Weaving Magic 

National Gallery

26 April – 28 August 2017

The National Gallery - Sunley Room


Turner Prize-winning artist Chris Ofili unveils a new work – see his first foray into the medium of tapestry

Commissioned by the Clothworkers’ Company, Ofili has been collaborating with the internationally renowned Dovecot Tapestry Studio to see his design translated into a hand-woven tapestry.

The imagery reflects Ofili’s ongoing interest in classical mythology and the stories, magic, and colour of the Trinidadian landscape he inhabits.

Ofili returns to the National Gallery following the exhibition Metamorphosis: Titian 2012.

The tapestry goes on permanent display in the Clothworkers’ Hall following this exhibition.

The Sunley Room exhibition programme is supported by the Bernard Sunley Charitable Foundation.



Image above: A detail of the tapestry by Chris Ofili. Courtesy the artist and Victoria Miro, London © Chris Ofili. Photograph by Gautier Deblonde 


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About the artist 


Chris Ofili was born in Manchester, England, in 1968, and currently lives and works in Trinidad.

He received his BA in Fine Art from the Chelsea School of Art in 1991 and his MA in Fine Art from the Royal College of Art in 1993. Solo exhibitions of his work have been presented internationally, including recent shows at the New Museum, New York (2014), travelling to Aspen Art Museum (2015); The Arts Club of Chicago (2010); Tate Britain, London (2010 and 2005); kestnergesellschaft, Hannover (2006), The Studio Museum in Harlem, New York (2005), and Serpentine Gallery, London (1998). He represented Britain in the 50th Venice Biennale in 2003 and won the Turner Prize in 1998.

In Chris Ofili’s work painterly and cultural elements – both sacred and profane, personal and political, from high art and popular culture – come together to play on ideas of beauty while carrying messages about black culture, history and exoticism.

Chris Ofili, 'Ovid-Actaeon', 2011 - 2012.

Oil and charcoal on linen

Ofili came to prominence in the early 1990s with richly orchestrated paintings combining rippling dots of paint, drifts of glitter, collaged images and elephant dung – varnished, often studded with map pins and applied to the picture surface as well as supporting the canvas – a combination of physical elevation and symbolic link to the earth. He won the Turner Prize in 1998 and over the past two decades has exhibited in many international institutions. In 2003 he was selected to represent Britain at the 50th Venice Biennale, where he presented his ambitious exhibition Within Reach.

'Afronirvana', 2002

In 2010 Tate Britain presented an extensive survey of his work and in 2014, Night and Day, held at the New Museum, New York, featured more than thirty of Ofili’s major paintings, in addition to drawings and a selection of sculptures from across his career. The exhibition travelled to the Aspen Art Museum in Colorado in 2015.