Dem Belleful
Title: Dem Belleful
Medium: acrylic on canvas
date: 2021
48×36″
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Title: Dem Belleful
Medium: acrylic on canvas
date: 2021
48×36″
This is one of the paintings I just discovered in my garage.
The painting celebrates Robert Hayden’s poem, “Middle Passage.”
It is a really long poem.
The painting focuses on this excerpt:
“That Crew and Captain lusted with the comeliest
of the savage girls kept naked in the cabins;
that there was one they called The Guinea Rose
and they cast lots and fought to lie with her: ”
The character across the floor of the ship being whipped to consent is the lady called Guinea Rose in the poem.
Gbogbo igi kọ́ lejò ń gùn (Not all trees can be scaled by the snake)
Gbogbo omi kọ́ lẹdun ń mu (The colobus monkey doesn’t drink all types of water)
Àyàfi wèrè, àyàfi dìgbòlugi (Only the insane, only the raving lunatic)
Artist: Moyo Okediji
Title: Orò Ilé
Medium: terracotta
Date: 2010
Life, when lived properly, is like playing in this giant park called Earth.
Find the thing you love to play with, and turn it into your work.
Then you can start playing.
I play with words, to enjoy the miracle of sound.
I play with images, to savor the magnificence of sight.
Playing is the best way to give thanks to the Creator of this giant park, and to fully enjoy the fruits and drinks that the park abundantly supplies.
My gallery space, Austin, TX.
The carpenter is singing as he does the roof:
Ẹ̀yin tẹ́ ń lóyún lé rodo-ríndín, hẹn-ẹn
Bọ́mọ bá yàgbẹ́ o
Baba rẹ̀ ní ó ko.
Translation:
You who conceive while your infants are mere suckling babies
When your infants mess their pants
Their daddies will change their diapers.