Artland Spotlight On: Black UK Artists Reshaping the British Contemporary Art Scene

‘Artland Spotlight On’ is a series highlighting a selection of artists who have grabbed our attention, from emerging players in the art scene, through well-established names, to icons of contemporary art. This week’s edition is dedicated to Black British Artists. We present a selection of 3three Black UK artists whose work powerful creative voices and work reflecting on identity, the uncanny, and the languages of colonial and post-colonial power are gaining international attention and enriching the British art scene.

British Black Arts Movement

In 1988, curator and historian Eddie Chambers said that the function of Black British art “was to confront the white establishment for its racism, as much as to address the Black community in its struggle for human equality.” Today, this still holds true, as Black British artists create their art to help examine and forge their identity, as well as to navigate the unstable and multifaceted experience of being “British”.

The Caribbean Artists Movement

In 1966, the Caribbean Artists Movement (CAM) was founded by writers John La Rose, Kamau Brathwaite and Andrew Salkey, a movement that promoted the work of postwar migrants from British colonies. This paved the way for a new Caribbean aesthetic in the arts, and in 1982, the First National Black Art Convention was held, accompanied by an exhibition about the form, function and future of black art. This was facilitated by a group of Black art students known as the Wolverhampton Young Black Artists. Artists associated with this group included Lubaina Himid, Keith Piper, Sonia Boyce, Maud Sulter, Chambers, Marlene Smith, Donald Rodney, Claudette Johnson, Andrew Hazel, Ian Palmer and Dominic Dawes. They became some of the key players in the 1980s Black Artist Movement (BAM) in the UK. 

Frank Bowling and Chris Ofili

Other groundbreaking Black British artists include Frank Bowling and Chris Ofili. Bowling fought for his place in the art world with his turn to abstract paintings, finding freedom from constraining expectations in the British art scene by moving to New York, and later returning to London. His abstract art approached the topics of identity, anti-racism and human equality in ways that were more difficult to comprehend for the public due to the Abstract Expressionist style. As such, he was a true trailblazer in art, defying all expectations and simplistic approaches. Chris Ofili, a British painter of Nigerian descent, also took an interesting path in art, becoming one of the Young British Artists at a young age and winning the prestigious Turner Prize in 1998 at the age of 30. He was the first Black artist to win this prize. Ofili is famous for his paintings incorporating elephant dung, earning him the title of ‘punk artist’. 

The Rise of Black Lives Matter

Though Black British artists did gain more and more visibility over the years, it was still always harder for most of them to keep a strong relationship with the mainstream art world and often had to exhibit their work in alternative spaces. More recently, with the powerful fight against racism embodied in the Black Lives Matter movement, which has spread all over the world, the art world has been doing a lot of important catching up. Exhibitions such as Soul of a Nation: Art in the Age of Black Power (2017), The Place is Here (2017), and Get Up, Stand Up Now: Generations of Black Creative Pioneers (2019), have contributed to cementing the place of Black artists in the mainstream art world, generating widespread interest in their art and spurring a much-needed rewriting of old art historical narratives.