by O. Yemi Tubi

Artwork Description

Oil: Africans' Wealth and Woe

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Oil: Africans’ Wealth and Woes. As in many African countries, Nigeria is rich in agricultural produce and many natural resources. Before the advent of Petroleum Oil; Cocoa, Coffee, Groundnuts, Palm Oil and other agricultural produce were mainly sources of Nigeria’s wealth. Since early 1970s, Petroleum Oil boom era, Nigeria government attention has concentrated mainly on Oil and revenue it generated. Very few Nigerians have made themselves very wealthy from Oil money while Oil pollution of air, water and farm lands has made many Nigerians very poor. This is what influenced O. Yemi’s painting – “Oil: Africans’ Wealth and Woes” As an artist who originated from Nigeria, O. Yemi was moved by the plight of his people from Niger Delta in Nigeria where oil pollution affects the lives and livelihood of the people. In developing this idea, he puts some of the images he found online together graphically on his computer. He started to use ‘subtractive’ painting, a technique used by many illustrators in various ways. He did a very finished pencil drawing then coated the drawing with oil. This requires very little opaque work as the half-tone drawing beneath is similar to a tinted photo he was using as reference. After the well-detailed drawing, he started to apply colours to the painting. He started from the top painting the sky with cyan blue and white colours which he will later go over with black and white colours to turn the beautiful sky to grey to reflect the polluted air produced by thick smoke emitting from the burst oil pipe from the far left of the painting. Under the polluted air He painted a rusty-roof shack village to show the level of poverty of the people living in the oil-rich part of the country with some of the fishermen boats stationed idle at the bank of the oil-polluted river and in the foreground are the children fetching water and drinking water from the polluted river.

Artwork Details

Medium: Painting Oil

Genre: Figurative