O. Yemi Tubi — Contemporary Art Curator Magazine

May 2

May 2 O. Yemi Tubi

Biography

O Yemi Tubi has exhibited his works around the world and received numerous awards and recognitions. O. Yemi works were awarded 1st, 2nd, 4th, 5th and 6th places in political commentaries in American Art Awards from 2014 to 2020. He was recipient Golden Award with cash award in 2014 Master of Art International exhibition by Margarita Feaks Gallery, UK. He also received First Round Award with cash in Art Olympia 2015 International Open exhibition in Tokyo Japan.
O. Yemi’s work was awarded “The Artist of the Future Award” by the Contemporary International Magazine in November 2020 and 1st Place (Best in Show) winner by Tall Sequoia Gallery, Toronto Canada in 2020. His works are one of the top 25 in the Fine Art category of Creative Quarterly Magazine and awarded 100 Best Annual 2019 Fine Arts Award Certificate. He works have been published in some Newspapers, Magazines, and art books. His works were published in 2019 ART Habens Art Review, Biennial Edition published in Issuu Vol. 49; 2019 MURZE Arts Magazine; Issue 4, January/February Issue 2019 and 2019 Quotes: Inspirational Quotations / Creative Responses’ book.

Artist Statement

I am a Nigerian born, American trained Artist, currently residing in the United Kingdom as an artist with a creative personal style. I paint in acrylic and watercolour, but my favoured medium is oil paints. My recent paintings were influenced by the political and social upheaval of our world today and the works of the Renaissance artists.
I like to use portrait paintings to tell the stories about my subjects as did with the portrait of Professor Wole Soyinka, 1986 Nobel Prize Winner in Literature in painting “SOYINKA: An Africans’ Literary Icon”, “PORTRAIT OF AN ARTIST” and the “THE VIOLINIST”
The theme of my works is "The Facts of Life: Roses and Thorns." Life is roses and thorns; sometimes it emanates aroma of pleasantness and sometimes it pricks and causes pains. I often use Roses and Thorns for paintings of the facts of life of people. I first used Roses and Thorns in my political painting -“THE BLEEDING ROSES”, since then I adopted this floral iconography style - Roses and Thorns as my own style in some of my paintings like “DOMESTIC ABUSE”, GELE: Vintage and Modern, SENSUALITY1: Pain and Pleasure and others.

What first prompted you to think of becoming an artist?

What first prompted me to think of becoming an artist was my ability and my passion for art and craft during my primary school years. My A+ marks often gave me higher grade points average when I was not doing well in other subjects and to get much needed pass marks to advance to next classes. Since then all I like to do is to be an artist while other children want to be doctors or lawyers.

What kind of an artist do you ultimately see yourself?

I see myself as figurative, political, and social activist artist. I do not like artworks just for decoration but to advocate positive changes, evoke and provoke feelings.

What are you hoping to communicate to the viewer through your work?

What I am hoping to communicate to the viewer through my works is my opinions and my views about the subject that I illustrated in my works. I often use my works as political commentaries and expresses my view on some social issues. My works are influenced by the renaissance artists. Like some of the old art masters Delacroix and Goya that spoke about social and political upheavals of their time in their works. I use some of my paintings to express myself about on-going political and social issues around the world. “A work of art which did not begin in emotion is not art” so said Paul Cezanne; I was deeply moved by the horrors of wars and the plight of Syrian immigrants drowning in the Mediterranean Sea; this was the feeling that moved me to painting “THE FISHERS OF MEN” The uprising in the Arab world was what influenced my first political painting “ARAB REVOLUTION” in 2012. “THE EAGLE HAS LANDED” was done to speak about American led war on terror. My painting “KABIYESI OBA OBAMA (Unquestionable King Obama)” was a political satire based on the love and hate relationship between President Obama and Donald Trump. I used my paintings “AFRICAN’T”, “HUNGER IN THE LAND OF PLENTY” and “OIL: AFRICANS’ WEALTH AND WOE” to speak about the exploitation of African nations. The Painting depicts paradoxical poverty and the riches of Africa. The outbreak of coronavirus in 2020 moved me to create three paintings, “Its is Finished; the Stone is Rolled Away”, “The Big Apple SOS” and “Lest We Forget”. The Killing of George Floyd by white American policeman in America provoked me to paint “The Broken Liberty”.

Can you explain the process of creating your work?

Unlike some artists that often use sketchpads to create their works, as graphic and visual artist, I use my laptop as my sketchpad to create my works. As ideas of works come to my mind, I will first collect images that I will use for references for my works through google search. I will use photoshop to manipulate the images and create my own reality. I don’t like to copy nature or pictures to create my works; my works mirrored the surrealism. I like to use portrait paintings to tell the stories about my subjects as did with the portrait of Professor Wole Soyinka, 1986 Nobel Prize Winner in Literature in painting “SOYINKA: An Africans’ Literary Icon”, “PORTRAIT OF AN ARTIST” and the “THE VIOLINIST”

The theme of my works, in general, is "The Facts of Life: Roses and Thorns." Life is roses and thorns; sometimes it emanates the sweet aroma of pleasantness and sometimes it pricks and causes pains. I often use Roses and Thorns for portrait paintings of the facts of life of people. I first used Roses and Thorns in my political painting - “THE BLEEDING ROSES”, since then I adopted this floral iconography style - Roses and Thorns as my own unique style in some of my paintings like “DOMESTIC ABUSE”, GELE (African Head Wrap): Vintage and Modern, SENSUALITY1: Pain and Pleasure and others.

What is your favourite part of the creative process?

My favourite part of the creative process is the manipulation of images. Sometimes I will use about three images of models to create one image of a person to avoid copyright infringement. I work with double-sided easel and I often work on two or three canvases at the same time. As I am working on one painting, I often get ideas of other works and I keep on creating that idea on my laptop while I am still working on canvases. Ecstasy feelings while I am working, and I can’t wait to finish one work to start another one. I often feel like those cowboys in the western movies that tagged “Trigger-happy”; my hands always itching to create arts.

Can you give us an insight into current projects and inspiration, or what we can look forward to from you in the near future?

I have about fifteen ideas already created graphically on my laptop stored in the archive. I am working on two canvases now; one large canvas on which I am sketching Cyclist’s tournament in London and on small canvas is one of work on Roses and thorns series. “Tears for Africa; Nigerian’s Horror” is my political statement about the Nigerian police officers killing Nigerian youths that were demonstrating for their right to life is in progress and I hope to finish it before October which is the one year of the Nigerian youths’ massacre. Ballerina Girl on Fire, Ecstasy of Motherhood, SENSUALITY 3: Glamour Model and Thorns, The Glamour and the Sexual Abuse in Bollywood are few of my works you can look forward to soon.

Website https://www.o-yemi-tubi.pixels.com

Instagram https://www.instagram.com/oyemit

Facebook https://www.facebook.com/yemi.arts