Artists

Yinka Shonibare was born in London. At the age of three, his family moved to Lagos, Nigeria, where he grew up. He returned to England to study for his A-Levels and shortly thereafter contracted transverse myelitis, which resulted in a permanent paralysis disability. Undeterred, Shonibare studied Fine Art at Byam Shaw School of Art and then at Goldsmiths’ College, University of London, where he obtained his master's in fine art.

Shonibare produces work in a range of media, from painting, sculpture, photography, and film to installation and performance art. His work critiques the colonialist establishment with an emphasis on race, class, and disability. Shonibare’s signature is his use of the vibrant African wax print fabric and he is well known for his headless life-sized figures clothed in wax cloth. Shonibare first became recognised internationally for his work Gallantry and Criminal Conversation, commissioned in 2002 by Okwui Enwezor at Documenta XI. He was shortlisted for the Turner Prize in 2004.

The artist holds a number of prestigious awards. In 2003, he was made an Honorary Fellow of Goldsmiths’ College and in 2004 his contribution to the arts was recognised when he was made a Member of the British Empire (MBE). He received an Honorary Doctorate in Fine Art from the Royal College of Art in 2010, was appointed a CBE in 2019, and was elected as a Royal Academician in 2013. He has exhibited widely internationally, including at the Venice Biennale; the Smithsonian Institution; and his major mid-career survey, which travelled from Sydney to the Brooklyn Museum in New York. In 2010, Nelson’s Ship in a Bottle, on the Fourth Plinth in Trafalgar Square, became Shonibare’s first public art commission. Shonibare is represented internationally in major museum collections, including the Museum of Modern Art in New York and Tate Modern in London.