Ofili's African Virgin

Chris Ofili’s painting, titled The Holy Virgin Mary, presents the image of a woman in a bluish gown, hovering in the center of a field of gold paint and glitter. Beams of light radiate from the top of the figure’s head as her eyes stare forward. These aspects are all familiar when I think of traditional, Medieval European religious paintings. However, before I even need to take a closer look, major contrasts are apparent: For one, the Virgin Mary’s dark brown skin, wide nose, and thick lips suggest that she is African. There is also a protrusion from the picture plane on the figure’s chest, indicating an exposed breast. And the figure is surrounded by strange conglomerates of purplish polyps that seem to be raining down around her.
At this point a closer inspection seems warranted. I realize that the polyps are in fact paper cut-outs of male and female genitalia from rather extreme pornographic magazines that have been collaged onto the background, as well as onto the virgin herself. Wherever the pieces of paper rest on the background, tiny waves of gold emanate in reaction to their presence, as though the bits of collage are floating in a pool of liquid gold. The collage element establishes a certain childhood craft-making sensibility in the piece. The pieces of paper are positioned somewhat haphazardly, some overlapping, and the single line of smaller pieces along the bottom of the frame are reminiscent of cowrie shells found on the beach and carefully glued to some Grandma’s birthday card. The rendering of the virgin also carries the mark of a child’s hand. Her body is somewhat formless, her two eyes are lopsided and different colors, and the coarse, brown flesh reminds me of mud—a substance that can easily be linked to childhood occupation of baking mud pies.
However, the flesh is not painted with mud, it is painted with elephant dung. The charms of childhood nostalgia suddenly fall apart here. The cut-outs of genitals come hurtling back to the foreground, and the virgin herself becomes instantly grotesque. The pool of gold in which the images float now seems much more like a puddle of piss, rich and deep and stinking. Now the previously harmless bits of genitals become unquestionable carriers of putrid, festering disease. In this same light, the shock of red that is the virgin’s mouth now appears to be a wide-open, exposed vagina—in this sense, the gaping threshold of both birth and sexual violence.
What I find so interesting about this work is the balance between these radically different ways of seeing it. Regardless of all the filthy elements at play, the figure still maintains the sense of balance and calm that Ofili borrows from Medieval iconography. Though the beastlike eyes lack the beauty and wisdom traditionally adorned to the image of Mary, there is nonetheless a stability in their gaze. It is soothing, despite the ruptures this painting causes in our preconceptions of the mother of God. From this perspective, the materials Ofili has chosen relax in their effect. Her flesh loses its explicit scatological charge and becomes simple, earthy material. The body parts in the paper collage become simply, organically human. The virgin stands in her blue frock, with her breast and backside exposed, as the Earth does: calm and maternal, nurturing and accessible.
It is here that the vicious uproar ignited by this work becomes more complicated. New York City Mayor, Rudy Giuliani, as well as countless fuming Catholics, led a robust opposition to the piece because of the use of excrement in the depiction of a sacred religious figure. The use of excrement in African cultures, however, can often indicate respect and admiration. So what Ofili is doing to the scared icon is not totally for blind shock-value. He is surreptitiously setting up the Virgin Mary as an African entity, complete with elements ranging from the excrement of indigenous African animals and its use to adorn sacred images, to graphic images from Blaxploitation pornography. Ofili baits the opposition with the pornography and elephant dung, but allows the ensuing outrage to point to the real discomfort at play here, which has to do with one culture subsuming the precious belongings of another.
Ofili actually dodges most of the opportunities to make something truly vulgar. It would be easy enough to paint the Virgin Mary right into a scene from a scat-porn video. Instead, Ofili makes his comment, but preserves the unwavering maternal grace that is at the core of this Christian figure.