Through much of his work Chris Ofili looks at the stereotypes that are placed on black people living in an urban society, whilst through his other, almost stereotypical influences and interests he becomes part of his work and some might say the subject of his own work.

In 1992 his interest and fascination with his African heritage saw him win a scholarship to travel to Zimbabwe where he saw ancient Matopos dot paintings on cave walls and the traditional body scarring of the Nuba tribe. During this eight week visit he also witnessed the remains of colonisation alongside the natural beauty of the land and its wildlife, leaving him with a mix of e

All of Ofili’s paintings are beautiful yet the inclusion and prominence of the dung somehow makes you question the feelings one has towards the paintings, in this case, “Double Captain Shit and the Legend of the Black Stars”.

Through his creative use of a wide variety of media including crayons, ink, paint sticks, and oils he built up images on furniture, walls and canvases. Both Ofili and Basquiat draw on their upbringing, experiences and heritage for inspiration. Ofili has his dung and Matopo style dots, Basquiat with his love of New York graffiti and painting subjects of black celebrities including Jimi Hendrix. Ofili gives us no explanation for his use of, or the relevance of the ‘Black Stars’, but Basquiat was more open and direct saying his interest in painting black celebrities was more to do with his desire to be famous than his interest in black culture. Both artists painting subjects are similar, they focus on black people and culture especially celebrities but also elevating them to sometimes stereotypical and sometimes almost mythical characters.

Looking at other work by Chris Ofili, for example his 1996 painting “Afrodizzia”, one sees a much more subtle use of the elephant dung. This painting is also displayed standing on two pieces of dung and leaning against the gallery wall, but the additional pieces that have been attached to the surface of the canvas are in general much smaller in size than the ones used in “Double Captain Shit and the Legend of the Black Stars”. “Afrodizzia” is also a much ‘busier’ painting, there is no central image and the pieces of dung blend in well with the collaged images of people’s faces with ‘Afro’ style haircuts. They are once again decorated with multi-coloured pins, spelling out a number of black celebrities names, including; LL Cool J, Don King, Frank Bruno and Clive Lloyd. With this painting I quite like Ofili’s use of the elephant dung, once again initially it stands out from the rest of the piece but over a short amount of time they are pulled into the background and the picture as a whole. They elephant dung used by Chris Ofili all comes from London Zoo and he has left instructions for its replacement should any of the pieces fall off over time, although apparently no one is precisely sure of the bonding process, especially bonding new or replacement pieces of dung to an existing painting.

The black stars are painted in acrylic over the collaged elements once they have been fixed to the surface. Next Ofili inserted map pins into the balls of elephant dung which were in turn secured to the linen stretcher using a hot glue gun. Once the dung was securely fixed to the canvas the entire surface was covered with polyester resin which helped to bond the elephant dung to it. The map

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