Brilliant, vibrant, emotive, and inspiring are words that come to mind when I look at the work of artist O Yemi Tubi. A Nigerian-born, USA-trained Artist, who resides in the UK, most of his recent paintings were influenced by the political and social upheaval of the world today, and the works of the Renaissance artists. He has exhibited his works around the world and received numerous awards and recognitions. 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. With enormous pleasure, I had the opportunity to interview him for Occhi Magazine.
How and when did you fully embrace art as a chosen field and career path?
In 1978, I took a less-paid job because it going to lead to a career path in art. I did not have the opportunity to study art in High School and I love art and I do not want to do anything else in life as a career besides art. I could not get admission to any higher institution in Nigeria – the country of my birth to study art because I did not have an art subject on my High School Certificate. I got employment through the help of my uncle in the Graphic Art Department in Oyo State Ministry of Information, in Ibadan, Nigeria. At first, I was not given employment because I failed the theory part of the test because I can only draw, and I did not have formal education in art.
When I got the job, I was able to prove myself worthy of the employment. I performed better than those staff that got the trade school certificate. I was moved to the bigger office where I worked side by side with the senior officers in the graphic art department. That time in Nigeria, if you don’t have a university degree you cannot climb high on the ladder of success. In around 1980, I sent the hard copies of my portfolio to Chelsea School of Art in London, and I did not get any reply. Thank God, I got admissions to the Chicago Art Institute, Chicago USA and South Georgia College, Douglas Georgia, USA. I chose South Georgia College in 1982 and I finished my 4 years of study at Valdosta State College in 1986.
How and why do you work in your chosen mediums?
I do paintings in acrylic and watercolor, but my favored medium is oil paint. I favored it because it does get dry quickly like acrylic paint and it blends well to give me a realistic look that I always like to achieve with my works.
Do you have a particular approach to developing projects or themes of work?
Unlike some artists that often use sketchpads to create their works, as a 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. Sometimes I will use about three images of models to create one image of a person to avoid copyright infringement. I work with a 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 those ideas on my laptop while I am still working on canvases. I often get ecstasy feelings while I am working, and I cannot 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. I have about fifteen ideas already created graphically on my laptop stored in the archive
I don’t like to copy nature or pictures to create my works; my works mirrored 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” (featured) “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”, 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.
Your painting ‘Portrait of an Artist’ was recognized at the Best Expressionism-Figurative Art of 2014 American Art Awards; and ‘The Eagle has landed’ won an award at Best Political Commentary Art of 2014 American Art Award. Can you explain the theme of these particular projects and how they emerged?
“Portrait of an Artist” was influenced by the painting of an old Italian Artist – Giuseppe Arcimboldo (An Artist that painted fruits and vegetables to creative people’s portraits), I created this painting as a tribute to one of his art teachers, Jim Meaders. As in many of my paintings, I like to use my paintings to make statements. I am using this painting to tell the viewer the occupation of my subject. I carefully assembled brushes, paint tubes, and a pencil that overlapped together to make various anatomical shapes of a human. Brushes for the hairy parts of the face, a pencil for the nose, and a paint tube for the mouth of the portrait.
“The Eagle has Landed” was done as my political statement about how America’s government told lies and lead the world into tearing Iraq apart in the search for the elusive “Weapon of Mass Destruction.” The lie that gave birth to the deadliest terrorist group in the world – The Islamic State that is responsible for the destruction of lives and livelihoods across the world.
Please tell us more about your piece ‘ The Bleeding Roses’ and your inspiration.
“We are troubled on every side, yet not distressed; were perplexed, but not in despair; Persecuted, but not forsaken; cast down, but not destroyed; Always bearing about in the body the dying of the Lord Jesus, that the life also of Jesus might be made manifest in our body.” 2 Corinthians 4: 8-10
“The Bleeding Roses” was done in solidarity with persecuted Christians across the world. I chose to paint the body of Christ (the Church) as roses. Christians are roses growing amid the thorns which are terrorists and anti-Christians governments. In this painting, there are people from different backgrounds united with a common goal – praying for persecuted Christians around the world.
The painting was influenced by the horrific atrocity perpetrated in Iraq and Syria by the Islamic State when the terrorist executed and literally crucified Christians that will not renounce their faith. Unlike many renaissance paintings of Crucifixion, I chose to paint the body of Christ (the Church) as roses.
I painted Roses in rainbow colors as persecution of Christians cut across every race. St Paul’s Cathedral among the buildings in the background is most noticeably Christian building in London the city where the painting was made.
Pope Francis was included in the painting as the head of the persecuted church. In the foreground right side of the painting is an African King representing part of Africa where Christians are being persecuted. On the left side are an Indonesian woman and a Syrian woman praying for the freedom of worship for Christians in their countries.
What is your biggest challenge as a visual artist?
My biggest challenge is financing my art. Art materials cost lots of money; exhibiting my works sometimes costs money and the quest to meet art collectors and art buyers costs lots of money as well. Regular sales of my works are the greatest challenge.
An artist is always developing and, hopefully improving their artistry with age. What advice would you give to young artists embarking on their careers?
The advice that I will give to the young artists embarking on their careers is not to focus on making fortune immediately. We all know the famous saying, “Fame and fortune”, for artists, fortune seldom comes without fame. Artists need to make their name famous in the art world to make fortune. Art collectors need to know them first before they start buying their works and unfortunately, some galleries and art establishments often promote what I do not consider as arts, like “A banana with duct-taped sold for $120,000.00 while serious artists are still battling day and night to get adequate recognition. Banksy will do a stencil artwork of one color or two like graffiti on the wall and they become the talk in the art world. Making fortune immediately should not be a motivating factor to choose art as their career.
The value and importance of the arts, and in particular visual arts, continues to be a contentious subject in some quarters. What importance do you place on the visual arts and the role of contemporary artists in modern society?
I really envy the renaissance artists like Michelangelo, Leonardo Da Vinci, Raphael, and others who did serious arts and got patrons that financed their arts. The value and importance of the arts vary in modern society. Performing artists and musicians are well valued and called celebrities; many of them climb the ladder of success often at the earlier stage of their careers. Unfortunately, this is not the same with visual arts; visual artists do not climb the ladder of success at the early stage of their career, and they are often called starving artists. The works of visual artists are more valuable after their death in modern society which I consider robbery and a crime against artists the used their sweat and blood to create works that are making billions for the modern art collectors. What is tagged as “Modern Arts” is the most contentious subject to me. Calling a banana with duct-taped a wok of art is an abuse of art and sold for $120,000.00 is crazy. The most contentious modern art is Unkempt Bed titled “My Bed” by Tracey Emin that was sold for a ridiculous price of £2.2 million.
What are you currently working on?
I am working on three canvases now; two large canvases, first is a commission work “Cyclist’s tournament in London” (featured) on 36” x 48” canvas, second is “Tears for Africa; Nigerian’s Horror” which is my political statement about the Nigerian police officers killing Nigerian youths that were demonstrating for their right to life is in progress also on 36” x 48” canvas which I hope to finish it before October which is the one year of the Nigerian youths’ massacre and the third is “African SOS; Dress code for Covid” This work is done as a campaign tool to encourage Africans to wear face masks to protect themselves against coronavirus.
Where can our readers find out more about you?
Website: https://www.o-yemi-tubi.pixels.com
Social Medias:
- https://www.facebook.com/yemi.arts
- https://www.instagram.com/oyemit
- https://www.twitter.com/OyemiartsOyemit
- https://www.youtube.com/result?search_query=o.+yemi+tubi
Featured artwork : “SOYINKA: An Africans’ Literary Icon” “The Eagle has Landed” “The Bleeding Roses” and “Cyclist’s tournament in London” copyright and courtesy of the artist
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