O Yemi Tubi

I am a Nigerian-born, American trained Artist, currently residing in the United Kingdom as an artist with a creative and unique personal style. I do paintings in acrylic and watercolour, but my favourite medium is oil paint. Most of my recent paintings were influenced by the political and social upheaval of our world today and the works of Renaissance artists.

“A work of art which did not begin in emotion is not art” so said Paul Cezanne; The uprising in the Arab world is what influenced my first political painting “ARAB REVOLUTION” in 2012. “THE EAGLE HAS LANDED” was done to speak about the American-led war on terror.
My painting “KABIYESI OBA OBAMA (Unquestionable King Obama)” was a political satire based on President Obama's love-and-hate relationship with Donald Trump. “THE BLEEDING ROSE” was done in solidarity with Christians beheaded by ISIS in Iraq and Syria.
I used my paintings “AFRICAN’T”, “HUNGER IN THE LAND OF PLENTY” and “OIL:
AFRICANS’ WEALTH

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I am a Nigerian-born, American trained Artist, currently residing in the United Kingdom as an artist with a creative and unique personal style. I do paintings in acrylic and watercolour, but my favourite medium is oil paint. Most of my recent paintings were influenced by the political and social upheaval of our world today and the works of Renaissance artists.

“A work of art which did not begin in emotion is not art” so said Paul Cezanne; The uprising in the Arab world is what influenced my first political painting “ARAB REVOLUTION” in 2012. “THE EAGLE HAS LANDED” was done to speak about the American-led war on terror.
My painting “KABIYESI OBA OBAMA (Unquestionable King Obama)” was a political satire based on President Obama's love-and-hate relationship with Donald Trump. “THE BLEEDING ROSE” was done in solidarity with Christians beheaded by ISIS in Iraq and Syria.
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.
My work, “THE FISHERS OF MEN” is about the horror of refugees drowning in the Mediterranean Sea. I also used my painting – “UKRAINE: THE UNFORTUNATE BRIDE” to speak about how America and Russia influenced the war in Ukraine.

My works progress from political paintings to paintings of the facts of the life of people. I desire my portrait paintings to be uniquely creative. I do not copy images from pictures. I create what a camera cannot create. I use portrait paintings to tell the stories about my subjects and often use my subjects’ professions to create their portraits as I did with the portrait of
Professor Wole Soyinka, 1986 Nobel Prize Winner in Literature in painting “SOYINKA: An Africans’ Literary Icon”, I used artistic materials to create my painting “PORTRAIT OF AN ARTIST” and I used the violin to create the face of my subject in 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 people's lives.
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.
Roses are for achievements and other positive parts of life and Thorns are painful challenges and negative parts of life.