Domestic Abuse

Life’s roses and thorns; sometimes it emanates sweet aroma of pleasantness and sometimes it pricks and causes pains. O. Yemi chooses to do series of Roses and Thorns paintings in which main objects of the paintings are roses and stems woven into human figures.

Rose is one of the gifts often used as romantic gesture of love and it naturally grows from the stems of thorns. In the early stage of relationship, couple often enjoy the aroma of roses and lovely blind to the flaws and thorns of each other. As challenges arise the couple starts to focus on each other flaws and start to feel the prick of their thorns

While preparing to work on this painting, the image of Christ fell under weight of the cross in “Stations of the cross” in some of the old master paintings came to mind. O. Yemi was influenced to paint the image of the main object of this painting in crawling posture. He used Rose and stems woven in the shape of a woman breast feeding while also overwhelmed with domestic task. He used the sticks of the push broom and mop as cross. In the middle ground is the husband sitting aloof and ironically reading the Daily Harmony newspaper. In the background is the picture of the couple’s happy days when they were enjoying the aroma of their love disregarding thorns of life; the picture on the Daily Harmony newspaper depicts the Thorns period where they argue and fight.

Couples should not focus on their partners’ thorns but appreciate the fragrance of love emanating from them.

This painting was done with oil on canvas

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