Yinka Shonibare is a British-Nigerian artist whose interdisciplinary practice explores themes of authenticity, identity, power, and colonial legacies across drawing, painting, sculpture, photography, film, and installation. Engaging with citations from Western art history and literature, his work questions the construction and perceived stability of cultural and national identities within a globalised context.
Through examining race, class and the construction of cultural identity, his work reflects on the tangled interrelationship between Africa and Europe, foregrounding the economic and political histories that continue to shape their connection.
Born in London in 1962 and raised in Lagos, Shonibare’s dual heritage profoundly informs his practice. His art investigates how history, particularly that of the British Empire, continues to shape modern identities and global relations. By blending European art-historical imagery with African textiles and post-colonial critique, he challenges the viewer to reconsider notions of authenticity and cultural ownership.
Central to Shonibare’s work is his use of Dutch wax fabric – a material often associated with African identity, yet originating from Indonesian batik which was industrialized by the Dutch, later popularized in West Africa through colonial trade routes. This fabric becomes a metaphor for cultural exchange and the complex entanglements of global history. Whether dressing 18th-century aristocrats or astronauts in these patterned textiles, Shonibare reveals how culture is never pure, but always hybrid, layered, and interconnected.
His sculptures and installations frequently restage moments from European art and history, replacing faces and skin tones with headless mannequins. This striking choice not only removes individual identity but also references the French Revolution and its ideals of liberty and equality, interrogating who those ideals truly served. Works such as The Swing (after Fragonard) and Nelson’s Ship in a Bottle, the latter permanently displayed in London’s Trafalgar Square, reimagine canonical images of Western culture through a post-colonial lens, exposing the hidden inequalities and global dependencies that underpinned them.
Beyond sculpture, Shonibare’s practice extends to film, photography, and public art, each medium used to explore the performance of identity in a post-colonial world. Appointed a Commander of the Order of the British Empire (CBE) and elected a Royal Academician (RA), Shonibare continues to use wit, beauty, and historical dialogue to provoke critical reflection on the intersections of race, class, and culture. His work reminds us that history is not a fixed narrative but a constantly evolving conversation, in which every fabric pattern, costume, and gesture carries the weight of both past and present.
Shonibare’s works are in notable museum collections internationally, including Tate Museum, London; Victoria and Albert Museum, London; National Museum of African Art, Smithsonian Institute, Washington, D.C; Museum of Modern Art, New York; Moderna Museet, Stockholm; Museum of Contemporary Art, Chicago; National Gallery of Modern Art, Rome; and VandenBroek Foundation, Netherlands and among many others.