1 boat, 2 trains, 4 tubes = 2 galleries & 1 museum visit (part 2!)

After visiting Tate Modern, we popped along to Tate Britain (by way of the Tate to Tate boat service - you get a discount if you have a travel card). While my fellow travellers visited the Henry Moore exhibition, I selected to see what Chris Ofili had to offer. The first few rooms show his early works and I was struck by how intricate this works actually are...so much detail is lost when the images are reproduced for books or t.v, but each painting is created using the same materials (paint, glitter, resin), the same process (painting, collage) and suggest traditional ethnic themes which are depicted using highly contemporary (and sometimes provocative) imagery. By room 2 I discovered I was walking 'backwards', against the curators guidance! (Each painting's information card was to the left of the painting...encouraging the viewer to walk round in a clockwise direction)...I had been going anti-clockwise (never one to take the simple or obvious route!!).
His more well know piece, 'The Upper Room', I very nearly missed...and was only when I reached the end of the exhibition that I thought it odd that this piece would have been 'left out' and decided to re-trace my steps! This remarkable work is reached by walking along a dark wooden corridor (only a few gaps in the wall at foot level provide some kind of guidance), turning right into a remarkable scene. With its heady mixture of multiple faiths and the dark, enclosed spiritual space, one views the 12 individual 'monkeys' (all composed identically - a monkey in profile holding a chalice, yet separately coloured: red, blue, black, white, grey, green, yellow etc etc) and realise that each one is facing the 'Golden' monkey, at the head of the alter/table/room. This was probably my favourite room of this exhibition both in content and context. However, I also found his works on paper a real treat to look at! As with his paintings, his pencil drawings are both intricate and highly detailed, and I found that they helped me to understand some of the formal elements in his early paintings - at dot is not just a dot...but you'd have to see the drawings to understand!
As with most Fine Art curation, this was also laid out chronologically, and so the final room contained Ofili's most recent work. Although still using the bright colours seen in all his previous works, this pieces are much more 'natural', both in the subject matter and the materials used, no glitter, no collage...but bizarrely, this room left me feeling that this current work is 'transitional' and dare I say 'unresolved'?? but still a very enjoyable exhibition that I'm glad I was able to see.