Chris Ofili
Reclining Silver Nude with Blue, 2006
Oil on canvas
40.5 × 30.5 cm
After moving to Trinidad in 2005, Ofili began a series of blue paintings inspired by the Jab Jab or ‘Blue Devils’, a Trinidadian carnival tradition of men coming down from the hills body-painted blue. The sense of partial mystery in those paintings, of known unknowns, is ever present in his work from the island.
“Trinidad never really fully reveals itself. They have not set themselves up in the way that other Caribbean islands have.To be in a place like that is really exciting to me still. Not exciting of the heart more exciting of the spirit. There is always inner reshaping going on…” – Chris Ofili
Exhibition:
Hunky Dory. Gary Tatintsian Gallery, March – Apr 2007
Catalogue:
Hunky Dory. Gary Tatintsian Gallery, 2007. pp. 52 – 53