Chris Ofili: The Seven Deadly Sins

‘I think the works are more about the inner feelings one has about the sin – not necessarily only in the moment of committal – than about what happens afterwards, or the idea of judgement.’ — Chris Ofili

Gathered around the base of a deep bowl, three figures are focused on supporting the vessel and the burst of fire, flowers, and particles that spring up from it. A plume of smoke rises and simultaneously reveals itself as a tangle of figures. They reach upwards, opening their mouths to become the source of a cascading stream of smaller spectral figures jetting up – some seem to disperse and some are drawn back down towards the bowl. There is a feeling of symbiosis within this painting, with elements feeding each other in a cyclical motion.

‘In real life, our sins are often as unclear as our nicer motivations; often they’re jumbled together, a ball of spores that shoot off in all directions whenever another human, or life event, enters our consciousness, and heart.’ — Hilton Als

This painting is dominated by a figure that recurs in Ofili’s work, and which he refers to as the ‘Harvester’. Here, he presides over a zone populated by an explosion of glowing, spore-like forms, redolent of creative or transitional energies. Exotic flowers sprout from the mouths of the faces at the bottom of the work, creating their own fertile atmosphere in this cauldron of activity. Flowers are also borne by the three further figures: most prominently, a satyr, bowing his head, tenders from his lips a languid purple bloom that resembles a paintbrush.

‘Greed, like lust and gluttony, is a sin of desire. However, this desire is to acquire more than one needs.’ — Inua Ellams

Although the time of day is uncertain, this painting is saturated by summertime fertility. A female figure swings in an attitude of lazy abandon, while a satyr lounges in the pink foreground. Partly inspired by Mallarmé’s symbolist poem The Afternoon of a Faun, in which the central character reflects on his visions of a pair of nymphs, these two figures aren’t necessarily of the same spatio-temporal plane. While the satyr is earth-bound, connected to the flowers that his looping tail resembles, the vaporous nymph almost dissolves into and out of the air through which she moves.

‘Sometimes I think sin is merely a good thing taken too far. Sloth is relaxation if black people relaxed like white people.’ — Marlon James

‘Time can be conceptualised as a sweeping hand, rather than a ticking hand – I’m trying to find a sweep of time, rather than the mechanical units of time.’ — Chris Ofili

A satyr with glowing pink horns reclines and bows his head, his upturned palm outstretched before him. From his hand, he presents a shadowy double of his own head. He appears to remove a mask or shed a skin, suggesting he is offering some part of himself – an essence or soul. Placing a crown on the satyr with an extended arm, a female figure bends backwards, her multi-limbed form suggesting she is caught in the various stages of movement. In the shadowing and echoing of forms, a palimpsest of earlier moments seems to permeate the present.

‘I am maudlin and thin with envious sin
for a dream in which a hairy snake
is cornered in a drum – all hiss
and no teeth.’
— Anthony Joseph

A bright yolk-like sunburst dominates this painting, its beams casting prismatic striations down and across the entirety of the image. The sun rays catch the image of two falling figures, evoking the tale of Icarus in which, in an act of hubris, he flew too close to the sun, causing his feather and wax wings to melt and sending him to his death in the sea below. In his nod to Icarus at the very moment of transgression, Ofili foregrounds his exploration of the liminality of sin and the crossing of boundaries just as an act is being committed.

‘The hearts of children,’ Sir bellowed, his hand gripping the black book, ‘small as they may be, are the perfect vessels for sin.’ — Ayanna Lloyd Banwo

The satyr depicted here reclines voluptuously, as if supported by the edges of the canvas that offers a window on to his world. As the sun sets in this paradisiacal, yet tantalisingly earthly place, a pair of egrets glides overhead. Dangling from the top of the painting are two pairs of legs and feet. Perhaps these are fragments of memory, or fugitive figures descending through the scene. Is the satyr unknowingly observed, or has he summoned (or banished) two of his companions?

‘Mummy, what is Sin?
Sin is something that powerful people do, for which powerless people have to pay the price.’ — Attillah Springer

A tumbling pink waterfall envelops an arcing female figure. Submerged beneath the water, she stretches backwards with one leg extended straight up above her. Stacked along the left edge of the canvas, a tower of faces in profile hold between their lips the stems of plants which sprout across the work, culminating in bright exotic blooms. The first face in profile at the top left corner sprays a fountain of particles from their mouth, which vibrate and shimmer across the picture plane. The spray coalesces in clusters to reveal the figure of a satyr, formed by the particles in the atmosphere against the inky night sky behind him. The satyr smells the flowers growing towards him and appears to be in deep contemplation, either in a reverie from their scent or preparing to consume them.

‘Sin can fill your mouth, and belly and loins but not your heart!’ The Rooster addressed the Peahens. ‘Sisters, turn from sin and save yourselves!’ — Lynette Yiadom-Boakye

This exquisitely produced book is published by Victoria Miro on the occasion of the exhibition. Chris Ofili invited seven writers – Hilton Als, Inua Ellams, Marlon James, Anthony Joseph, Ayanna Lloyd Banwo, Attillah Springer and Lynette Yiadom-Boakye – to contribute new writing. Like Ofili’s paintings, their poems and narratives are not confined to illustrating single sins but meditate, personally and expansively, on sinfulness.

Special exhibition price £60

222 x 280 mm, 66 page hardback book with three-piece binding and foil blocked on back cover, illustrated with 7 paintings, 7 details.

Designed by Atelier Dyakova and printed and bound by Roy Killen.

ISBN  978–1–914506–07–9

Chris Ofili’s Pink Daydreams of a Faun is a series of ten prints on unique Suminagashi paintings, inspired by Stéphane Mallarmé’s Symbolist poem L’Après-midi d’un faune, and printed and published in 29 suites by Two Palms, New York. Alongside the suite on view is a new book published by Victoria Miro, which includes Mallarmé’s poem and an essay by Minna Moore Ede, who traces its legacy across works by Debussy, Manet, Nijinsky and others, and considers its influence as a generative impulse in Ofili’s work.

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Chris Ofili was born in Manchester, England, in 1968, and currently lives and works in Trinidad. Major solo exhibitions of the artist’s work have been presented at international venues including the Institute of Contemporary Art, Miami (2017–2019); National Gallery, London (2017); New Museum, New York (2014–2015), travelling to Aspen Art Museum (2015); The Arts Club of Chicago (2010); Tate Britain, London (2010 and 2005); Kestner Gesellschaft, Hannover (2006), The Studio Museum in Harlem, New York (2005), and Serpentine Gallery, London (1998). The artist represented Britain in the 50th Venice Biennale in 2003 and won the Turner Prize in 1998.