Yin­ka Shon­i­bare, CBE

Born Lon­don, Unit­ed King­dom 1962

Lives and works in London

Yin­ka Shon­i­bare, CBE is a British-Niger­ian con­tem­po­rary artist cur­rent­ly liv­ing and work­ing in Lon­don. Shonibare’s prac­tice is con­cerned pri­mar­i­ly with artic­u­lat­ing expe­ri­ences of Euro­pean colo­nial­ism and think­ing through post­colo­nial the­o­ry via his hall­mark medi­um — bright­ly coloured ​‘African’ batik fab­ric. Through the cloth, which he sources from Lon­don, Shon­i­bare nav­i­gates an intri­cate and sub­ver­sive his­to­ry involv­ing Indone­sian design, Dutch mass-pro­duc­tion, colo­nial trade routes and African self­hood and independence.

Through insert­ing the kalei­do­scop­ic colours into a vari­ety of artis­tic meth­ods and media, Shon­i­bare explores cul­tur­al dynamism with­in the con­tem­po­rary con­text of glob­al­i­sa­tion and increas­ing­ly com­plex net­works of inter­na­tion­al pow­er, depen­den­cy, trade and migra­tion and its con­se­quences for racial, nation­al and eco­nom­ic identities.

Select­ed recent exhi­bi­tions include Prej­u­dice at Home: A Par­lour, a Library, and a Room, James Cohan, New York (2017); Spread­ing Can­vas: Eigh­teenth-Cen­tu­ry British Marine Paint­ing, Yale Cen­ter for British Art, New Haven (2016); Recre­at­ing the Pas­toral, VISU­AL Cen­tre for Con­tem­po­rary Art, Car­low (2016); and Yin­ka Shon­i­bare MBE, Turn­er Con­tem­po­rary, Mar­gate (2016).

CV

Bib­li­og­ra­phy