Gliding between cultural references, the present jewel-like composition mesmerises with its meticulous execution of layers and complexity of materials and textures. Affectionately titled after two elephants from Berlin's Circus Crone, Chris Ofili's tantalizing Rara and Mala (1994) is one of the original works displaying the artist’s ingenious use of elephant dung, today a trademark of his very best work. Ofili first displayed his canvases resting on two lumps of dung at an exhibition at Atlantis in London in 1993, and the present early canvas was the centrepiece for the artist’s breakthrough solo exhibition at the Serpentine Gallery in London in 1998, the same year he was awarded the prestigious Turner Prize.
Image: © Renato Granieri / Alamy Stock Photo
Painted with tiny dots of yellow paint set against a red and green background, Rara and Mala showcases Ofili’s admiration of the prehistoric caves in Zimbabwe’s Matobo National Park, covered entirely with small blotches of red and ochre spots. The swirling and meditative abstract arabesques created from tiny beads of vibrant colour and bleeding pools of resin epitomise Ofili's layered absorption of cultural and historical influences, fearlessly taking on questions of the sacred juxtaposed with the profane, the humorous with the sublime, and the bold with the mysterious. The lower part of the present composition is adorned by Ofili’s signature material – a resin-coated elephant dung. Although artists such as David Hammons have used elephant droppings in their varied artistic practices, Ofili discovered the material following an eight-week travelling scholarship to Zimbabwe in 1992, initially applying dried pieces of dung directly onto canvas. The trip resulted in Ofili taking balls of dung back to Europe in his suitcase, which he then put on display at a street fair in Berlin and later on Brick Lane in London.
“People would look at the dung, look at me, and ask what it was. I actually sold some, which was hilarious.”
Soon, the material began to feature as an important structural element propping his monumental works as “a way of raising the paintings up from the ground and giving them a feeling that they’ve come from the earth rather than simply being hung on a wall” (Chris Ofili cited in Carol Vogel, ‘Chris Ofili: British Artist Holds Fast to His Inspiration’, New York Times, 28 September 1999, online). Highlighting the exoticism of the African continent and his ancestry, the dung works as a potent, uniquely African, unifying element, providing a material link to a world of cultural implications that hint at the cycles of life and nature.
“The most important thing is what people bring to the work, really. Not necessarily what the work is giving out to people, I mean, that’s from my point of view, because I make the work and I put so much of what I know into it. But then I think it’s also a mirror. It allows people to see themselves and reflect their own ideas in the work.”
Parallel to this cultural referent, however, there is also an art historical precedent which Ofili acknowledges in the psychedelic impact of Op artists such as Bridget Riley and finally the rhythmic beat in Jazz music, "because when dots are made, there is this constant tapping noise...That comes out of just being in the studio and listening to music" (Paul Miller, 'Deep Shit', Parkett, No. 58, 2000, pp. 171-76).
In the present work, Ofili bridges his formal training with influences taken from natural surroundings, ancient pointillism with aesthetic beauty with cultural commentary. Both bold and decorative, Rara and Mala encapsulates the artist’s unique and diverse influences brought together through layers of resin, paint and dung.
"I'm trying to make paintings that make you hear them, rather than see them. So actually, you're looking at music. So it will teach your eyes to hear, and your ears to see."