Ofili’s first dung works discovered
Paintings donated on African trip in 1992 urgently need conservation
By Martin Bailey From issue 227, September 2011
Published online 15 Sep 11 (News)
Chris Ofili’s first dung paintings, made when the artist visited Zimbabwe at the ¬beginning of his career, have been tracked down by The Art Newspaper to the vault of a gallery in Bulawayo.
In 1992, Ofili, then 23, went on a British Council-funded visit to the Pachipamwe International Artists’ Workshop (Pachipamwe means “where we are all together” in Shona). It was held at Cyrene Mission, an Anglican boys’ school 40km south-west of Bulawayo.
Ofili first used elephant dung in his work on three paintings that he made at Cyrene Mission and left behind for the Pachi¬pamwe organisation. Although the workshops came to an end in 1994, the Pachipamwe trustees had already given the works on permanent loan to the Bulawayo branch of the National Gallery of Zimbabwe (NGZ), which collects contemporary art.
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