Shonibare's website says:
"Yinka Shonibare MBE was born in 1962 in London and moved to Lagos, Nigeria at the age of three. He returned to London to study Fine Art, first at Byam School of Art (now Central Saint Martins College) and then at Goldsmiths College, where he received his MFA.
Shonibare’s work explores issues of race and class through the media of painting, sculpture, photography and film. Shonibare questions the meaning of cultural and national definitions. His trademark material is the brightly coloured ‘African’ batik fabric he buys in London. This type of fabric was inspired by Indonesian design, mass-produced by the Dutch and eventually sold to the colonies in West Africa. In the 1960s the material became a new sign of African identity and independence."
The cultural mash-up that results from cladding traditional European sculpture in this Dutch-African material is delicious.
Top to bottom: Apollo of the Belvedere (After Leochares); Butterfly Kid (Boy); Butterfly Kid (Girl) IV; David (after Michelangelo); Discus Thrower (After Myron); Mrs. Pinckney and the Emancipated Birds of South Carolina; Revolution Kid (Calf); Revolution Kid (Fox); Venus de Milo (After Alexandros); Winged Victory of Samothrace
And here are his Elemental figures:
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| Earth |
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| Air |
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| Fire |
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| Water |
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