Overview
Describing himself as a ‘post-colonial hybrid’, Yinka Shonibare CBE RA creates work that explores issues of race and class through the media of sculpture, painting, photography, film, tapestries and public works.
Describing himself as a ‘post-colonial hybrid’, Yinka Shonibare CBE RA creates work that explores issues of race and class through the media of sculpture, painting, photography, film, tapestries and public works.
Yinka Shonibare CBE RA was born in 1962 in London, England and moved to Lagos, Nigeria at the age of three. He lives and works in London. Shonibare was a Turner Prize nominee in 2004 and was elected as a Royal Academician by the Royal Academy, London in 2013. He was awarded the decoration of Most Excellent Order of the British Empire or MBE in 2004 and Commander of the Most Excellent Order of the British Empire or CBE in 2019. Shonibare received the prestigious Art Icon Award from Whitechapel Gallery, London and an honorary degree from The Courtauld Institute, London in 2021.
Shonibare’s practice questions the meaning of cultural and national definitions. His signature material is the brightly coloured ‘African’ Dutch wax batik fabric originally inspired by Indonesian design, mass-produced by the Dutch and eventually sold to the colonies in West Africa. In the 1960s the material became a signifier of African identity and independence.
In April 2024, Shonibare opened a major solo exhibition at Serpentine, London, England. Shonibare’s installation ‘Monument to the Restitution of the Mind and Soul’ features in ‘Nigeria Imaginary’, Nigeria's Pavilion at La Biennale di Venezia, the 60th International Art Exhibition, Italy. The artist’s new public works include two outdoor sculptures. ‘Material (SG) IV’ was unveiled in September 2023 for Frieze Sculpture, and a permanent commission ‘Hibiscus Rising’ was unveiled in Aire Park as part of Leeds 2023. To mark Sharjah Biennial's 30th anniversary in February 2023, Shonibare was commissioned to create a series of new works for the exhibition. He transformed the Gallery at sketch, London as part of a long-term programme of artist-conceived restaurants, which opened to the public in March 2022.
