Yinka Shonibare

Planets in my Head-Physics, 2010

Wind Scultpture IV, 2013

Flower Power Kid (Suicide), 2013

Wanderer, 2006

Fetish Boots, 2011

Links:
http://www.jamescohan.com/artists/yinka-shonibare-mbe
http://www.yinkashonibarembe.com/artwork/sculpture/?image_id=102
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yinka_Shonibare



Yinka Shonibare was born in 1962 and is of British-Nigerian descent. His work tends to represent ideas such as colonialism and globalization. I think the idea of globalization is definitely apparent with Fetish Boots because there is this idea called commodity fetishism- where the consumer doesn't know what it takes to make a product-they simply want the product, and I feel like shoes in general are a good example of something we take for granted. In addition to that-globalization is the ever expanding to become better than others and sometimes people think better always means bigger- and by looking at Fetish Boots- I'd have to disagree.
Shonibare uses materials such as glass, mannequins, and non-use able guns in his art. I love the colors he creates within his work, especially because when you look past the bright colors, you see something sinister and dark. For example, when you look past the bouquet of flowers in Flower Power Kid you see the flowers are coming out of a gun. Since the colors are so bright though, my eyes went to the flowers before noticing the gun. Another interesting thing I found about Shonibare's work was the ship in Wanderer is trapped in a box- it can't actually wander anywhere. I enjoyed Shonibare's work because it made me question things like that. As in, although he named it one thing or made one part of the work really large- what other parts of the work may contradict that statement.