Afro Caribbean artist

This project is to find a work by a contemporary artist of Afro-Caribbean, African or Asian origin and demonstrate his or her take on 'blackness.'

I found the image No Woman No Cry by Chris Olifi:

No Woman, No Cry Chris Olifi 1998 available from http://art257virtualexhibitionyb.wordpress.com/chris-ofili/

Olifi is a controversial artist; another of his works - The Holy Virgin Mary - was the subject of an attempted ban when shown in New York in 1999. Rudolph Giuliani (mayor) took legal action against the painting, claiming (amongst other things)  that the use of elephant dung on a protrait of such a sensitive subject was "sick" and "disgusting" (wikipedia).

Giuliani's criticism was in part doubtless due to his ignorance that elephant dung has traditional ritual significance in Africa, an example of cultural ignorance leading to an extreme reaction.

No Woman, No Cry is an allegory of the deathe of Stephen lawrence, whose murder was not investigated thoroughly by the police, the omission later to be found to be racially motivated. The tears contain images of Stephen Lawrence and R.I.P Stephen Lawrence is subtly engraved in the background. The painting of what is assumed to be Lawrence's mother is polemical yet emits a powerful emotion to the human side of the tragedy.

Reference:

 Wikipedia: The Holy Virgin Mary. Available from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Holy_Virgin_Mary Accessed on 17 September 2014