Through my A-levels the majority of my work was bright vibrant paintings on large canvases as I really enjoy the initial impact that a combination of the two can have on a viewer. The painting is displayed leaning back against the wall and standing on two balls of elephant dung that have been sealed in a polyester resin by the artist in 1997. The main image of the "Double Captain Shit", takes up the majority of the canvas which is a single piece coarse linen fabric that has been stretched very tightly around an "eight -membered" rigid stretcher. The linen fabric was supplied by Russell and Chapple and was purchased by Ofili pre-primed with their Universal Primer. Building up the surface of this pre-primed stretcher he coated it in three layers of Lascaux Acrylic, (pure Acrylic), Gesso primer. Despite Ofili building up the surface through this process the canvas remains very flat overall, although one can visually see the separate layers they work together with one another to create what appears to be a solid flat background on which the painting is then developed. I like the way in which his precise Matopo inspired dots build up and come together creating the main image, really standing out against the smooth, soft background where the colours have been allowed to run freely. It is thought that these dots were painted in oil and could have been applied within the blue border simply straight from the tube, with a syringe, or a dripping stick, all precise methods to allowing Ofili to control the amount of paint used and the positioning of the dots. There is Ofili's trademark elephant dung attached to the surface and whilst I think I would personally enjoy the painting more from a solely visual perspective if it were not there, although I do understand its significance and relevance to the artist and the memories and ideas that come with it. Without it the painting would not have the same impact, perhaps one would be ignorant of the very strong link between the artist and his African heritage, or as Ofili says himself:.