Ruins Decorated, a series of striking installations by British-Nigerian artist Yinka Shonibare MBE, is currently being exhibited at Goodman Gallery Johannesburg, until 6 October 2018.

The exhibition is his second solo show in Africa, having not exhibited on the continent for 15 years.

Born in London in 1962, Yinka moved to Lagos, Nigeria at age three. He then relocated back to London to study Fine Art. In 2004, he was nominated for the prestigious Turner Prize.

The exhibition consists of sculpture, staged photographs, paintings, installation and film, all of which explore powerful narratives around the struggle for African independence and the rise and fall of western empires.

Detail from Post-Colonial Globe Man. Fibreglass sculpture, hand-painted with Batik pattern.

Portrayed in four parts, each section dissects these themes. “What I do is create a kind of mongrel,” he explains. “In reality, most people’s cultures have evolved out of this mongelisation, but people don’t acknowledge that.”

The exhibition runs until 6 October 2018 at Goodman Gallery, 163 Jan Smuts Avenue, Parkwood, Joburg. The gallery is open Tuesday to Friday from 9:30am to 5:30pm and on Saturdays from 9:30am to 4pm.

See more of Yinka’s work at yinkashonibarembe.com.

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In April 2015, TIME magazine released its annual list of the world’s 100 most influential people. Included in the list was Turner Prize-winning English artist Chris Ofili.

“With works like No Woman, No Cry and The Holy Virgin Mary, both breathtaking and controversial in equal measure, he positioned himself as an artist who could redefine art practice by affirming the relevance of painting for the 21st century,” writes award-winning architect David Adjaye, for TIME.

Since the mid-90s, Ofili became known for his meticulously executed painting, which combines traditional mediums with cowdung, sacred themes and the profane, while drawing inspiration from a wide range of sources, including the Bible, jazz, hip hop, blaxploitation movies and Zimbabwean cave paintings.

One of Ofili’s most controversial career moments happened in 1999. The City of New York – and its mayor at the time – Rudy Giuliani, famously brought a court case against the Brooklyn Museum to block them from showing the above mentioned The Holy Virgin Mary, calling it “sick” and “disgusting”. The museum eventually won the court case.

Since 2005, Ofili has lived and worked in Trinidad.

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