Art Exhibition Theme: Wisdom In Colour

Featured Painting: Harmony on the Line 

Dates:
Thursday, 28 August 2025 - 12:00 PM to 4:00 PM
Friday, 29 August 2025 - 10:00 AM to 3:00 PM

Venue: Forest Hill Library
82 Dartmouth Road, Forest Hill,
London, SE23 3HZ

Admission: FREE

Exhibition Overview
In "Yoruba Proverbs on Canvas," Matthew transforms traditional Yoruba sayings into powerful visual compositions. These proverbs - rich in imagery, metaphor, and ancestral insight are given new life through expressive brushstrokes, layered textures, and bold colours.

Each painting is an interpretation of a specific proverb. By merging visual art with verbal wisdom, this exhibition offers a unique window into cultural storytelling.
Each one is accompanied by an artist statement presented on a laminated A4 sheet.

This featured painting draws inspiration from the Yoruba Proverb: “Adiyẹ baa l’okùn, ara ò ròkùn, ara ò r’adiyẹ."  "Harmony on the Line" is a visual meditation on the Yoruba proverb that says, “A chicken is perching on a rope; neither the chicken nor the rope feels any pain.” This age-old wisdom speaks to a state of delicate balance, where two opposing forces coexist in quiet understanding, without tension or harm.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Ogidi’s Quiet Wonder

Image
This painting, Ogidi’s Quiet Wonder, was inspired by a deeply spiritual and serene moment I experienced with my wife in Ogidi, Nigeria, in August 2019. It was around 8 p.m., and we were sitting on the front balcony of our countryside home, immersed in a quiet heart-to-heart conversation, when the moon suddenly rose and cast its luminous glow across Ayọnrọ Mountain. The sight stunned us—it felt like time paused, and the hand of God revealed a piece of heaven. I quickly took a photo, not wanting the moment to slip away. Upon returning to the UK, I translated that fleeting beauty into this 75 x 60 cm acrylic painting on canvas. Today, it hangs in my bedroom and is the first thing I see each morning—a daily reminder of God’s wonder and the grace to witness such beauty. "Beauty is the nature of God," and this piece is my expression of that truth.
Read more

Meeting Grace

Image
The first thing that attracted me to Grace was her simplicity and the gentle aura of innocence that characterised her first appearance. She had also come home for Christmas. I liked Grace from the very moment I set eyes on her. I saw her across the road opposite my family home and approached her as if we had met before. This was my usual approach for starting a conversation with any girl I saw, liked, and wanted to know better. She responded with calmness and humility. She had a small camera in her hands, and I asked if she would like to take my picture. With a tone that felt like an unspoken invitation to continue, she said it wouldn’t be necessary. I introduced myself and mentioned that I would like to meet her again if possible. We met a few more times before I left Ogidi for Lagos, but I promised to visit her in Ilorin, where she lived with her parents. Before leaving Ogidi for Lagos, I told my mother I had found the girl I wanted to marry and asked her to find out mor...
Read more

The Heart That Birthed the Universe

Image
There are moments when a painting feels less like something I created and more like something that revealed itself to me. The Heart That Birthed the Universe is one of those moments. This piece came from a place beyond words—a deep, internal pulse I can only describe as cosmic. I didn’t set out to paint the universe. I didn’t plan the colours or the structure. I simply began with a feeling: a sense of something vast, silent, and full of energy—like a heart quietly beating at the centre of everything. The painting evolved around a central form: not quite a heart in the anatomical sense, but a symbolic one. Radiating from it are lines, threads, and bursts—forms that remind me of galaxies, particles, rays of light, or even the veins of time itself. I used a mix of white, red, gold, and darker tones to create contrast, motion, and mystery. To me, it feels like a moment of birth, of sacred expansion—the very beginning of something eternal. Looking at it now, I see my own journe...
Read more