Following in the footsteps of artists like Goya and Miro, the Turner Prize-winning British artist Chris Ofili engages for the first time with the medium of tapestry. In the words of Ofili himself: “The Caged Bird’s Song is a marriage of watercolour and weaving. I set out to challenge the weaving process, by doing something free-flowing in making a watercolour, encouraging the liquid pigment to form the image, a contrast to the weaving process.”
The Clothworkers’ Company has commissioned Ofili’s tapestry and he has worked with the world-renowned Dovecot Tapestry Studio, who have spent two and a half years hand weaving this beautiful tapestry which reflects the artist’s ongoing interest in classical mythology.
Ofili is returning to the National Gallery following the exhibition Titian: Metamorphosis 2012. In this he was one of three contemporary artists asked to respond to Titian's great mythological paintings, Diana and Actaeon, The Death of Actaeon and Diana and Callisto, which depict stories from the Roman poet Ovid's Metamorphoses. Ofili produced new paintings in which the classical world was transposed to Trinidad, where he lives and works. He also designed a related series of costumes and sets for a new ballet performed by the Royal Ballet at the Royal Opera House, Covent Garden.
The imagery in this new tapestry reflects Ofili's ongoing interest in classical mythology and contemporary 'demigods', together with the stories, magic and colour of the Trinidadian landscape he inhabits.
Chris Ofili: Weaving Magic. The National Gallery, London, 26 April – 28 August 20.
