Shonibare, Yinka
Working across painting, photography, film and sculpture, British Nigerian artist Yinka Shonibare, CBE – who describes himself as a ‘postcolonial hybrid’ – explores themes of cultural identity, class and race. In his work, he often makes use of vibrantly coloured wax-print fabric bought in Brixton market, London. This is the case for his mixed-media sculpture The Crowning (2007), which features two life-sized headless mannequins reclining in a colourful tableau. The postures of these figures, and their costumes – emblazoned with the logo of well-known luxury brand Chanel – are modelled on those of a romantic couple in a painting by 18th-century painter Jean-Honoré Fragonard, The Progress of Love: The Lover Crowned (1771–72). Shonibare’s The Crowning offers an oblique but critical commentary on postcolonial identity as well as the wealth and excesses of contemporary and historic aristocratic society.