Park Bench (Sept 2013)

Park Bench By Victoriadeyemi

This is the seventh piece from the Black Sketchbook. Park Bench started off without direction. I don’t remember why I called it Park Bench, I set out wanting to draw something pretty and I ended up with this.

It was until I looked closer at it, that I realised that it was probably inspired by two very special people in my life, I and A. This is because park bench is a symbolic interpretation of their relationship; every complaint I makes seems to have a suffocating effect on A, and every time she sighs seems to have a poisonous gas effect on him. They get on each other’s nerves to the point where it almost looks unhealthy.

It is bizarre, they have been together for 20 years and even though they are total opposites of each other they usually seem to make every difficult situation work… in the end. I have watched them go from height to low, I have watched them have catastrophic arguments about the most ridiculous things and then laugh about it a few days later. They always seem to come back to their senses in the end and they seem to grow stronger after each argument. I cannot really tell if such a relationship flourished because they are individually strong and can take whatever the other dishes out or because opposites were just meant to be (like opposite ends of a magnet).

I like that even though the darkness underneath his eyes indicates that he is dying from it all, he stayed close. I did not finish drawing or shading Park Bench. And I don’t think that I will ever finish it; it will remain unfinished and endless just like the relationship between I and A.