Yinka Shonibare (born 9 August 1962) is a British artist whose work explores cultural identity, colonialism and post-colonialism within the contemporary context of globalisation. A hallmark of his art is the brightly coloured Ankara/batik fabric he uses. As Shonibare is paralysed on one side of his body, he uses assistants to make works under his direction.

Early life and education

thumb|Wind Sculpture (London, 2014)

Yinka Shonibare was born in London, England, on 9 August 1962, the son of Olatunji Shonibare and Laide Shonibare. When he was 17 years old, Shonibare returned to the UK to take his A-levels at Redrice School, an English boarding school in Andover, Hampshire. Shonibare's father wanted him to study law. He had to re-learn to do everyday tasks, such as walking and dressing himself, and to create art again.

Shonibare studied Fine Art first at Byam Shaw School of Art (now Central Saint Martins). In the late 1980s, Shonibare studied at Goldsmiths, University of London for his MFA degree, graduating as part of the Young British Artists generation. It took him about six years from graduating to work with a commercial gallery, which he has said was due to racism within the commercial art world.

He has exhibited at the Venice Biennial and at leading museums worldwide. He was notably commissioned by Okwui Enwezor at documenta XI in 2002 to create his most recognised work, Gallantry and Criminal Conversation, which launched him on the international stage.

In 2004, he was shortlisted for the Turner Prize for his Double Dutch exhibition at the Museum Boijmans van Beuningen in Rotterdam and for his solo show at the Stephen Friedman Gallery, London. Of the four nominees, he seemed to be the most popular with the general public that year, with a BBC website poll resulting in 64 per cent of voters stating that his work was their favourite. However, he lost out to Jeremy Deller. received an Honorary Doctorate (Fine Artist) of the Royal College of Art in 2010 and was appointed a CBE in the 2019 New Year Honours. He was elected Royal Academician by the Royal Academy of Arts in 2013. He joined Iniva's Board of trustees in 2009. He has exhibited at the Venice Biennial and internationally at leading museums worldwide. In September 2008, his major mid-career survey commenced at the Museum of Contemporary Art, Sydney, and toured to the Brooklyn Museum, New York, in June 2009 and the National Museum of African Art of the Smithsonian Institution, Washington DC, in October 2009. In 2010, Nelson's Ship in a Bottle became his first public art commission on the Fourth Plinth in Trafalgar Square.

On 3 December 2016, one of Shonibare's Wind Sculpture pieces was installed in front of the Smithsonian's National Museum of African Art (NMAA) in Washington, DC. The painted fibreglass work, titled Wind Sculpture VII, is the first sculpture to be permanently installed outside the NMAA's entrance.

In 2019, Shonibare received an MBE and a CBE.<!-- People always took his work seriously and he said: "if you love someone fight for them with your hands"-->

A key material in Shonibare's work since 1994 is the brightly coloured batik fabric (African wax-printed cotton) that he buys himself from Nasseri Fabrics LTD, a shop in Brixton, London. Today, the main exporters of "African" fabric from Europe are based in Manchester in the UK and Vlisco Véritable Hollandais from Helmond in the Netherlands. Despite being a European invention, the Dutch wax fabric is used by many Africans in England, such as Shonibare. He has these fabrics made up into European 18th-century dresses, covering sculptures of alien figures or stretched onto canvases and thickly painted over.

Shonibare is well known for creating headless, life-size sculptural figures meticulously positioned and dressed in vibrant wax cloth patterns in order for history and racial identity to be made complex and difficult to read. In his 2003 artwork Scramble for Africa, Shonibare reconstructs the Berlin Conference of 1884–1885, when European leaders negotiated and arbitrarily divided the continent in order to claim African territories. By exploring colonialism, particularly in this tableaux piece, the purpose of the headless figurines implies the loss of humanity as Shonibare explains: "I wanted to represent these European leaders as mindless in their hunger for what the Belgian King Leopold II called 'a slice of this magnificent African cake. Scramble for Africa cannot be read as a "simple satire", but rather it reveals "the relationship between the artist and the work". It is also an examination of how history tends to repeat itself. Shonibare states: "When I was making it I was really thinking about American imperialism and the need in the West for resources such as oil and how this pre-empts the annexation of different parts of the world."

Shonibare's Trumpet Boy, a permanent acquisition displayed at The Foundling Museum, demonstrates the colourful fabric used in his works. The sculpture was created to fit the theme of "found", reflecting on the museum's heritage, through combining new and existing work with found objects kept for their significance.

He also recreates the paintings of famous artists using headless mannequins with Batik or Ankara textiles instead of European fabrics. He uses these fabrics when depicting European art and fashion to portray a "culture clash" and a theme of cultural interaction within postcolonialism. Examples of Shonibare's recreations are Gainsborough's Mr and Mrs Andrews Without Their Heads (1998) and 2005's Reverend on Ice (after The Rev Robert Walker Skating on Duddingston Loch by Raeburn).

One artist whom Shonibare references in multiple works is Jean Honoré Fragonard. He recreated Fragonard's series The Progress of Love (1771–1773), which included his works The Meeting, The Pursuit, The Love Letter, and The Swing. A unique inclusion within these recreations, was the inclusion of branded fabric. The Swing (After Fragonard) (2001) has the woman on the swing wearing an imitation or "knock-off" Chanel patterned fabric. The use of this fabric was meant to further explore the themes of post-colonialism, globalism, and cultural interaction that are present throughout much of his work, while also commenting on the consumerism and consumer culture of the modern world and how all of these themes intersect. or his Dorian Gray (2001), named after Oscar Wilde's 1890 novel The Picture of Dorian Gray. Dorian Gray deals with the transformation of the body, and drew on Shonibare's experience of disability. The work was placed there on 24 May 2010 and remained until 30 January 2012, being widely admired. In 2011, the Art Fund launched a campaign and successfully raised money for the purchase and relocation of the sculpture to the National Maritime Museum in Greenwich, where it found its new permanent home.

Other works include printed ceramics, and cloth-covered shoes, upholstery, walls and bowls.

In October 2013, Shonibare took part in Art Wars at the Saatchi Gallery curated by Ben Moore. The artist was issued with a stormtrooper helmet, which he transformed into a work of art. Proceeds went to the Missing Tom Fund, set up by Ben Moore to find his brother Tom, who has been missing for more than 10 years. The work was also shown on the Regent's Park platform as part of Art Below Regents Park.

<!-- Deleted image removed: thumb|350px|Wind Sculpture 1, 2013 by Yinka Shonibare at [[Yorkshire Sculpture Park, England as part of a major survey of works in the solo exhibition FABRIC-ATION]] -->

The Goodman Gallery announced in 2018 that the Norval Foundation, South Africa's newest art museum based in Cape Town, has made a permanent acquisition of Shonibare's Wind Sculpture (SG) III, making it a first for the African continent. The sculpture will be unveiled in February 2019, increasing the British-Nigerian artist's visibility on the continent where he grew up.

Shonibare has collaborated with Bellerby & Co, Globemakers.thumb|Shonibare with [[Hibiscus Rising sculpture, Leeds (2023)]]

thumb|Hibiscus Rising see from above|leftIn 2023, his first work of public art was unveiled in Leeds. Entitled Hibiscus Rising, it commemorates the life and death of David Oluwale, a Nigerian homeless man persecuted by Leeds City Police.

On 24 June 2025, it was announced that Foster + Partners were chosen to design national memorial to Queen Elizabeth II in St James' Park; Shonibare is part of the team along with landscape designer, Michel Desvigne.

Guest Projects

He runs Guest Projects, a project space for emerging artists based in Broadway Market, east London. He is extending this to spaces in Lagos, Nigeria.

Yinka Shonibare Foundation

Shonibare founded the Yinka Shonibare Foundation aims to support international and local artists.

Other activities

  • Zeitz Museum of Contemporary Art Africa, Member of the Global Council

Awards

  • In 2004, Shonibare was granted the title Member of the Order of the British Empire (MBE). He ironically incorporates the title into his official artistic identity, as he states that it is "better to make an impact from within rather than from without... it's the notion of the Trojan horse... you go in unnoticed. And then you wreak havoc."
  • In 2019, Yinka Shonibare was awarded and decorated with the Commander of the Order of the British Empire (CBE).
  • Shonibare received the Whitechapel Gallery Art Icon Award in March 2021.

Disability

Shonibare is a disabled artist. He relies on a team of assistants to fabricate his work, operating himself as a conceptual artist and/or designing the works.

In 2013, Shonibare was announced as patron of the annual Shape Arts "Open" exhibition, where disabled and non-disabled artists are invited to submit work in response to an Open theme.

Personal life

Shonibare's brother is a surgeon, his elder brother is a banker and his sister is a dentist.