Yinka Shonibare CBE RA was born in 1962 in London, to a wealthy Nigerian family. At age 3, his family returned to Lagos. At 17, Yinka moved back to the UK and later studied Fine Art at Byam Shaw School of Art, London and Goldsmiths College, London, where he received a Master’s Degree in Fine Art.
The British-Nigerian artist is best known for exploring ideas of authenticity, identity, colonialism and post colonialism power relations through drawings, paintings, sculptures, photographs, films, and installations. Shonibare’s signature feature is his use of African cloth, originally made from Dutch wax-printed fabrics. In his work, Double Dutch (1994), Shonibare created a grid of colourful printed fabric. In 2003, his artwork Scramble for Africa, depicted a reconstruction of the Berlin Conference of 1884–1885.
Shonibare received the Turner Prize in 2004. In 2008, his mid-career survey began at the Museum of Contemporary Art, Sydney, travelling to the Brooklyn Museum, New York and the Museum of African Art at the Smithsonian Institute, Washington D.C. In 2010, his first public art commission, Nelson’s Ship in a Bottle, was displayed on the Fourth Plinth in Trafalgar Square, London. In 2013, Shonibare was elected a Royal Academician. In 2019, Yinka Shonibare was awarded the Commander of the Order of the British Empire (CBE).
Refs: African Voice Newspaper – African news from a British perspective (africanvoiceonline.co.uk)
Biography – Yinka Shonibare CBE RA
Photo By David Lindsay on behalf of LEEDS 2023 (Leeds Culture Trust); original sculpture by Yinka Shonibare (pictured) – https://www.flickr.com/photos/leeds2023yearofculture/53471969409/, CC BY-SA 2.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=145939951
