1) The patience and sheer beauty of the craft involved. Ofili's way of beading paint gives his paintings a gorgeous tactile quality. They were, my companion suggested, reminiscent of Tracey Emin's quilts and there is something in that.
2) After a couple of minutes you don't really notice the big dods of elephant dung.
3) Increasingly he is looking to the Carribbean for his influences but what is interesting is how often his earlier paintings reference black American imagery and iconogaphy - be it American singers or sportsmen or just his obsession with afros. The most beautiful, troubling painting in the exhibition is his painting No Woman No Cry, an image of Stephen Lawrence's mother crying tears for her murdered son (his image contained in every tear), but the specificity of that image seems set apart - a clear - and very painful, sorrowful - example of Black British culture. Ofili's images draw on lots of sources - from religion and pop culture - but they don't feel particularly British sources. Or am I just not looking closely enough? (TJ)
