Multiple Dorian Grays: Yinka Shonibare Photographical Take on Oscar Wilde’s Only Novel

Abstract

Oscar Wilde’s The Picture of Dorian Gray (1890) is one of the cornerstones of Victorian literature. Having this in mind, this paper intends to pounder on Yinka Shonibare’s transmedial work, titled Dorian Gray (2001), compiled in eleven black and white photographs and a coloured one, depicting himself as Dorian. The pillars of such work go back not only to the novel itself, but also to Albert Lewin’s film adaptation of the former [The Picture of Dorian Gray (1945)]. As such and having the photographic pieces as the focus, a reflexion will be conducted to understand in what ways the vision of the authors changed the already shifting nature of Wilde’s main character and how referred mutations were impacted by their context of creation, as well as how they may have influenced the reception of the literary work and Dorian himself. It also aims to think about the significance behind such transformations, along with reflecting on the contemporaneity of reimagining this idealised perfect persona as something very distant form the Irish writer’s primary depiction, crystalized by an art that, in the nineteenth century, was gaining popularity but was yet far from assuming the lead role as the key media to represent one’s external aspect