print mixing, layered dresses, floral and leopard, green boots, Style Imitating Art, Shelbee on the Edge

Style Imitating Art: Leisure Lady (with Ocelots) by Yinka Shonibare & #SpreadTheKindness Link Up #277

May 31, 2022 / 54 Comments
print mixing, layered dresses, floral and leopard, green boots, Style Imitating Art, Shelbee on the Edge
print mixing, layered dresses, floral and leopard, green boots, Style Imitating Art, Shelbee on the Edge
print mixing, layered dresses, floral and leopard, green boots, Style Imitating Art, Shelbee on the Edge
print mixing, layered dresses, floral and leopard, green boots, Style Imitating Art, Shelbee on the Edge
print mixing, layered dresses, floral and leopard, green boots, Style Imitating Art, Shelbee on the Edge
print mixing, layered dresses, floral and leopard, green boots, Style Imitating Art, Shelbee on the Edge
print mixing, layered dresses, floral and leopard, green boots, Style Imitating Art, Shelbee on the Edge

About Style Imitating Art

Style Imitating Art is hosted by Salazar of 14 Shades of Grey, Terri of MeadowTree Style, and Shelbee of Shelbee on the Edge. Style Imitating Art challenges us to draw style inspiration from pieces of art. Every other Monday, one of the hosts, acting as curator, selects an inspiration image that they will each post on their blogs. The following Monday, each host shares her art inspired outfit. Participants are invited to submit their art inspired outfits to the curator by 10:00 p.m. EST on the Tuesday following the hosts’ art inspired outfit posts. The following day, Wednesday, the curator will share all of the submissions on her blog.

You don’t have to be a blogger to join! You are invited to share your images on Instagram or other social media platforms. Just be sure to tag Salazar, Terri, and Shelbee or use #TeamLOTSStyle and #StyleImitatingArt so the hosts know you have joined. Go have some fun in your closets and join the SIA challenge next week!

The Inspiration Artwork

The inspiration artwork was chosen by Terri. You can read why she picked this work here.

Leisure Lady (with Ocelots) by Yinka Shonibare (Life-size mannequin, three fiberglass ocelots, Dutch wax printed cotton, leather, glass, 2001)
print mixing, layered dresses, floral and leopard, green boots, Style Imitating Art, Shelbee on the Edge
print mixing, layered dresses, floral and leopard, green boots, Style Imitating Art, Shelbee on the Edge
print mixing, layered dresses, floral and leopard, green boots, Style Imitating Art, Shelbee on the Edge
print mixing, layered dresses, floral and leopard, green boots, Style Imitating Art, Shelbee on the Edge
print mixing, layered dresses, floral and leopard, green boots, Style Imitating Art, Shelbee on the Edge
print mixing, layered dresses, floral and leopard, green boots, Style Imitating Art, Shelbee on the Edge
print mixing, layered dresses, floral and leopard, green boots, Style Imitating Art, Shelbee on the Edge
print mixing, layered dresses, floral and leopard, green boots, Style Imitating Art, Shelbee on the Edge
print mixing, layered dresses, floral and leopard, green boots, Style Imitating Art, Shelbee on the Edge
print mixing, layered dresses, floral and leopard, green boots, Style Imitating Art, Shelbee on the Edge
About the Artist: Yinka Shonibare

Yinka Shonibare is a British-Nigerian artist who was born in London, England, on August 9, 1962, to Olatunji and Laide Shonibare. At the age of 3, his family moved to Lagos, Nigeria, where his father practiced law. When he was 17 years old, he returned to England to finish his schooling. A year later he contracted transverse myelitis which is an inflammation of the spinal cord that resulted in paralysis on one side of his body.

Despite this early onset long-term disability, Shonibare went on to study Fine Arts eventually earning his MFA from Goldsmiths, University of London. Post-graduation, he worked as an arts development officer for Shape Arts, which is an organization that promotes making the arts accessible to people with disabilities.

Because of his disability, Shonibare uses assistants to create his artwork under his direction. His artistic work explores cultural identity from the perspective of colonialism and post-colonialism within the contemporary context of globalization. A trademark of his art is the brightly colored African/Dutch wax prints, or Ankara fabrics, that he uses in much of his work. He hand picks the fabrics himself at the Brixton Market in London but he acknowledges that these fabrics are not authentically African and that their unique crossbred cultural background and the fallacy of that signification is what appeals to him.

A significant portion of his work involves the creation of 18th-century European dresses crafted from his handpicked Ankara fabrics. He then covers mannequins and various other sculptures including alien figures in these dresses or he stretches them onto canvases and paints over them. His headless, life sized sculptural figures are meticulously positioned and dressed in vibrant wax cloth patterns in an effort to make history and racial identity complex and difficult to read within his works.

He views culture as an artificial construct and explores cultural issues through a wide range of media which includes painting, sculpture, photography, installation art, film, and performance. One particular focus is his examination of identity construction within the tangled relationship between Africa and Europe and their respective economic and political histories. He has described himself as a post-colonial hybrid as he questions the meaning of cultural and national definitions. Much of his work is inspired by his own life and personal experiences, but he also draws inspiration from around the globe, calling himself a citizen of the world.

Shonibare has won various prestigious art and cultural awards and continues to exhibit his work internationally. His disability has worsened with age which now requires him to use an electric wheelchair. He currently lives in the United Kingdom.

print mixing, layered dresses, floral and leopard, green boots, Style Imitating Art, Shelbee on the Edge
print mixing, layered dresses, floral and leopard, green boots, Style Imitating Art, Shelbee on the Edge
print mixing, layered dresses, floral and leopard, green boots, Style Imitating Art, Shelbee on the Edge
print mixing, layered dresses, floral and leopard, green boots, Style Imitating Art, Shelbee on the Edge
print mixing, layered dresses, floral and leopard, green boots, Style Imitating Art, Shelbee on the Edge
print mixing, layered dresses, floral and leopard, green boots, Style Imitating Art, Shelbee on the Edge
print mixing, layered dresses, floral and leopard, green boots, Style Imitating Art, Shelbee on the Edge
print mixing, layered dresses, floral and leopard, green boots, Style Imitating Art, Shelbee on the Edge
print mixing, layered dresses, floral and leopard, green boots, Style Imitating Art, Shelbee on the Edge
About the Art: Leisure Lady (with Ocelots)

Created in 2001, “Leisure Lady (with Ocelots)” features a life sized headless female fiberglass mannequin donning an 18th century style dress crafted from Shonibare’s hallmark Ankara fabric. She is walking three fiberglass ocelots on leashes attached to very fancy collars. The media included in this work are Dutch wax printed cotton, fiberglass, leather, and glass.

“Leisure Lady (with Ocelots)” was included in a major mid-career survey of Shonibare’s works, titled Mother and Father Worked Hard So I Can Play, which was exhibited in 2009 at the Brooklyn Museum of Art in New York.

Resources/References:
About the Art
About the Art
About the Art
print mixing, layered dresses, floral and leopard, green boots, Style Imitating Art, Shelbee on the Edge
print mixing, layered dresses, floral and leopard, green boots, Style Imitating Art, Shelbee on the Edge
print mixing, layered dresses, floral and leopard, green boots, Style Imitating Art, Shelbee on the Edge
print mixing, layered dresses, floral and leopard, green boots, Style Imitating Art, Shelbee on the Edge
print mixing, layered dresses, floral and leopard, green boots, Style Imitating Art, Shelbee on the Edge
About My Outfit Inspired by Leisure Lady (with Ocelots)

I was so excited when I first saw this piece for a number of reasons. The overabundance of prints on the dress and the ocelots delivers a powerful visual punch to the face that I quite enjoyed. Then there is the amazing 18th century style which is one of my favorite fashion eras ever. By the way, my favorite fashion eras include, well, all of them.

The fact that this lady of leisure has three pet ocelots that are obediently walking on leashes also really tickles my fancy. And then, of course, the underlying intent of the work that forces us to question historical relationships and intercultural influences between Africa and Europe appeals to my intellectual side. When I view the work from that perspective, I also see a class dichotomy that results in cultural appropriation that is worth examining.

But I will examine that later on my own time and you can do the same. If you feel compelled to discuss the underlying meaning of the work, please start the discussion in the comments.

Now my outfit…I had so much fun putting this together and the end result made me so very happy. Mostly because I didn’t think I could pull this off.

When I first began brainstorming what to wear, I had in mind to focus on the style and colors of the mannequin’s dress and add some hints of leopard. But I could not find anything in my closet that adequately represented the Ankara fabric or the 18th century style of the dress. So I decided instead to style a leopard dress and add elements to it that reflected the African wax print.

I also wanted long layers or tiers to reflect the peplum and train attached to the dress. I pulled out a few dresses that had colors and prints similar to the mannequin’s dress and started layering them together. They were all wrong until I found the right combination in this floral long sleeved maxi dress layered beneath my sleeveless leopard print midi dress. I absolutely love the way these two prints play together.

Green is a dominant color in the artwork and I realized that I only had tiny bits of barely visible green in the floral print so I added green accessories with my tie belt, boots, handbag, and necklace. The outfit was screaming for something else so I decided on my rust beret which is the perfect color to highlight the dress pattern.

I want to highlight that my beaded owl necklace was handmade by Michelle of My Bijou Life and I stupidly did not get a very good close up photo of it. It has green and gold beads with the cutest little owl pendant.

Once again, this series pushed me to try something different with my clothing and I loved the end result. I have so many clothes, why not wear two dresses at once?

About My Outfit Inspired by
print mixing, layered dresses, floral and leopard, green boots, Style Imitating Art, Shelbee on the Edge
print mixing, layered dresses, floral and leopard, green boots, Style Imitating Art, Shelbee on the Edge
print mixing, layered dresses, floral and leopard, green boots, Style Imitating Art, Shelbee on the Edge
print mixing, layered dresses, floral and leopard, green boots, Style Imitating Art, Shelbee on the Edge
print mixing, layered dresses, floral and leopard, green boots, Style Imitating Art, Shelbee on the Edge
print mixing, layered dresses, floral and leopard, green boots, Style Imitating Art, Shelbee on the Edge
print mixing, layered dresses, floral and leopard, green boots, Style Imitating Art, Shelbee on the Edge
print mixing, layered dresses, floral and leopard, green boots, Style Imitating Art, Shelbee on the Edge
print mixing, layered dresses, floral and leopard, green boots, Style Imitating Art, Shelbee on the Edge
print mixing, layered dresses, floral and leopard, green boots, Style Imitating Art, Shelbee on the Edge
print mixing, layered dresses, floral and leopard, green boots, Style Imitating Art, Shelbee on the Edge

Be sure to check out Terri’s interpretation of the artwork as well as Salazar’s take on it. And please visit Terri on Wednesday to see her review post of outfit submissions. If you want to participate, you still have time! Terri needs your photos by Tuesday at 10:00 p.m. EST to be featured in her post. 

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Outfit Details: Leopard Dress and Green Tie Belt-Torrid / Floral Dress-Old Navy / Boots-Shoe Dazzle / Hat-Wona Trading / Necklace-handmade by Michelle of My Bijou Life / Bag-c/o Teddy Blake / Earrings-Thrifted

I am a midlife woman, wife, and stay-at-home mother of 2 boys and 2 cats. I have a passion for helping other women feel fabulous in the midst of this crazy, beautiful life.

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