NATURE OF MY ART AND WHAT INSPIRES ME

NATURE OF MY ART AND WHAT INSPIRES ME

I attribute the nature of my Art to various possibilities. It is likely that I may have got the talent from my mother’s skill in knitting. My mother used to knit beautiful flowers on table cloths and nice crotchets on bed sheets. She also has a lot of interest in planting flowers in the compound around her home, a passion I also cherish.

I was also reliably informed by one of my brothers that she was until as near as 10 years ago still involved in village club activities for women and their related concerts and plays. She is now 75 years old.

It is also possible that the talent could have been shared from my father who was a motor vehicle mechanic, and whose skill necessitated not only one’s ability to dismantle and re assemble engine parts, but also the intelligence to be able to detect mechanical hidden problems. I also remember him as versatile in wiring electrical components of vehicles and welding their broken parts. He died three years ago, aged 85 years. To date, a welding machine and his tool box are still in his bedroom. All the qualities mentioned above from my father and mother, could have been integrated in my DNA component for Art.

I am generally inspired by nature, mystery, philosophy, psychology, history, politics, culture, traditional stories, literature, science and technology, religion, metaphysics and global issues.

I am keen at observing nature. I listen to its noise, its voices, its whispers and its silence. I scrutinize the silent parts of noise and also pay attention to the noisy parts of silence. I ask questions related to the phenomena of nature and its ingredients. I mentally reflect on the invisible images hidden behind the real ones of space and nature. I can form Images and compositions from words, just like I have the ability to convert Images into written and audible words. To these, I give form and colour.

I watch human and animal behaviour. I visualize images hidden in stories, songs, poems, novels, films and plays. I observe love, kindness, hate, sadness, happiness, grief, hypocrisy and righteousness. I scrutinize the meticulous and the disorderly, the clean and dirty.

I brood and reflect on conscience, consciousness, unconsciousness, dreams, belief in the supernatural and metaphysics. From all the above I construct visible and tangible expressions and explanations to the unanswered questions of nature and mankind.

My answers to these questions are simply a shifting and fluid attempt to solving mans mental quests while serving the purpose of beauty and aesthetics. The paradox of my attempted solution is that the finished pieces create yet more unanswered questions. They are not only embodiments of beauty, but also emanations of a fleet of floating unanswered mystery.

It is up to the observer to find a resting place for the mind in the question, answer, confusion, the pleasure of seeing differently, or seeing the same thing with me at the same time in the same picture.