Article relating to an individual, 1997
Published by: Sunday Times Magazine
Year published: 1997
Number of pages: 5

Steve McQueen, Chris Ofili, and Yinka Shonibare were somewhat fortuitous beneficiaries of the unprecedented levels of curatorial and other attention paid to the yBa generation that included the likes of Tracey Emin, Damien Hirst, and Sam Taylor–Wood. By the mid-1990s, a new generation of young artists were rapidly acquiring celebrity status, alongside their ever-greater levels of critical acclaim. A year before his Turner Prize triumph, Ofili was one of several artists (Barry Reigate, Gary Hume, Gavin Turk, and Pascal Hervey being the others), who appeared in a fashion spread in the Sunday Times Magazine of 12 October 1997, pages 90 - 94. Titled “Paint it Black,” the feature was introduced as “In a world where formaldehyde is as routine as gouache, these artists still stand out as black sheep. We put them in wolf’s clothing. Photographs by Kim Andreolli.” In the feature, “Ofili wears merino wool top, £220, by Copperwheat Blundell at Liberty, Regent St, London W1 and Brother to Brother, 202 West Street, Sheffield. Jeans, artist’s own. Stool, stylist’s own.” The interviews were conducted by Leila Sadeghee.

Within the feature, several of the artists had had some sort of cosmetic substance apllied to the skin of their faces or torso. In Ofili’s case, this resulted in his face looking considerably darker, almost to the point of being black.