Article relating to a publication, 1996
Published by: GQ
Year published: 1996
Number of pages: 4

GQ Magazine, December 1996, Great British Issue, was a celebration of Cool Britannia.  The issue included a feature on Art, trailed on the contents page as Britain’s young masters, and written by Louisa Buck. The first of the five artists featured, deemed to be most reflective of Cool Britannia, was Chris Ofili and to this end, a full page portrait of the artist opened the piece. The other artists featured were Simon Bill, Tracey Emin, Sam Taylor-Wood, and Gary Hume. Works in Progress. Put yourself in the picture with Louisa Buck’s portraits of five British artists with the talent to take on the modern world. GQ Magazine, December 1996, pp. 86 – 90.

From the GQ text, “The first thing you notice about Chris Ofili’s paintings is their almost indecent lushness. And then there’s the elephant shit. Potruding from their vivid, densely patterned surfaces are great boulders of resin-coated elephant dung, with more on the floor, supporting the canvases like the ball-feet of a Victorian sofa.”

A full page portrait of Ofili, in his studio, taken by photographer Katrina Lithgow, accompanied the feature.