Yinka Shonibare

Yinka Shonibare is a British artist born in 1962 in Abuja, Nigeria. A hallmark of his work is the brightly coloured Ankara or Dutch wax batik fabric he uses across sculpture, painting and installation, most recognizably in headless, life-size mannequin figures dressed in the cloth and posed in scenes that reference eighteenth and nineteenth century European art and literature. His work examines colonialism, postcolonial identity and cultural hybridity within contemporary globalization. Paralysed on one side of his body after contracting transverse myelitis at eighteen, he directs assistants who fabricate the pieces while he works as the conceptual author. He emerged with the Young British Artists generation, was shortlisted for the Turner Prize in 2004, and was appointed Commander of the Order of the British Empire in 2019.