‘Follow Your Heart'(Sunken) Feb 2016

Sunken by victoriadeyemi feb 2016

Sunken was supposed to have been done in colouring pencil. I feel like colours would have given it more life, but I left all my colouring pencils in London, and didn’t feel like buying yet another set. I already have 3.

Dedicated to strong women everywhere and to the special ones in my life who inspired this.

Follow your heart. To where? and at what cost?

Whilst he thought of ways to follow his dreams, she thought ‘how do we pay the bills and eat?’
Not that she didn’t have any dreams of her own, but she was evidently more willing, albeit reluctant, to make sacrifices. “You make certain concessions to protect your own”

Ending up deeply wrought by a situation she concluded to be the fault of his lack of consideration and egoism.

She was hurt by the thought that she would have happily supported anything, if only he was at least following the voice of God. Not that of his selfish and fickle heart.

After finally accepting that chivalry is not actually dead because it never really existed, she could really only blame herself for ever having faith.

‘Its just, as you go through life, you’re bound to sometimes forget that people are just human beings. Regardless of who they are, what they mean to you or the promises that bind them to you.’

Atashino Tsubasa. Betrayal (Jan 2016)

Atashino Tsubasa (My Wings)  By Victoriadeyemi

HB pencil and Red chalk.

My Wings

It was the sound of my heart breaking.
When I forged for you clippers to break the hedge. “Set me free?”
Instead you used them to rip out my wings.
Cracked the bones even when they were still attached.
Robbed the desert soil of it’s gold.

These are my just rewards;
For there is nothing new underneath the sun.
“Whosoever breaketh a hedge, a serpent shall bite him”

The Nightmare Realm

Nightmare by Victoriadeyemi 

The  day before I drew this, I saw some swans really up close and thought I was going to end up drawing swans. But instead I ended up sketching a person with a neck similar to that of swans.

I wanted to give Nightmare feathers on her neck but after starting with the hair, I was less inclined to the feathers idea and gave her red iris instead.

The Nightmare realm.

When I stopped feeling, I moved to the nightmare realm.
In hope that it would shock my senses back into motion.
In the realm of nightmares, I learnt that;
Sometimes the moon performs a poor imitation of the sun.
Some curses can never be reversed because deep down we are used to them being part of our reality.
When invisible snakes dart at you, they do it with the most evil of intentions.
Poison is only fatal when it runs through your veins.

Water and music have healing properties.
Fire burns but it also cleanses.

Bread cannot sustain one’s life unless it is the Bread of life.

For those with stories, both heard and unheard

For those….victoriadeyemi

For those with stories, both heard and unheard.

 

For those who could cry no more tears.

For those who would never see their loved ones again.

For those who experienced demoralising, dehumanising events.

For those who lived through hearing screams.

For those whose lives have been turned upside down.

For those who could literally feel their hearts jump out through their mouths.

For those who were too traumatised to hold on to reality.

For those who are still trying to get used to it.

For those who could not do anything else but cry.

I once survived mass killings in a civil war outbreak. Though it was nothing as titanic as recent events, in those timeless yet brief hours,  I learnt what it felt like to be frozen in a state of shock; petrified. To not know whether to hide or run, to be surrounded by blood curdling screams.

I know the sound of death.

The sound it makes when it comes hungered, in a rage, unexpected.

But what haunts me more than the experience is the thought that this is not a one off thing for some people. That some people live the trauma, as the rest of the world watches in silence whilst they die.

The world has been shattered into delicate pieces long before last week, last month, earlier this year. The world has been so broken that the stories are becoming as ancient as time itself.

Please, Pray for a better world.

 

Monster (Oct 2013)

Monster by Victoriadeyemi

I struggled with writing. I didn’t know if I wanted to do it in the first or third person. Monster is technically a Black Sketchbook piece, I think it was the ninth or tenth.  It explores repentance and the act of forgiving one’s self, which I guess is an essential topic, because not a lot of people are aware that it is possible to hold a grudge against themselves. I sketched Monster 2 years ago, but I could only really write about it now. It was the first time I ever used pure graphite on paper.

I don’t know why I knew this, but I knew that all repentant monsters stood in dark corners and said venomous things to themselves, in their own individual spaces.

They remembered the past:
“where we incited fear with one glance of our bloodshot eyes, where we ripped things and people to shreds even when they pleaded ‘please don’t’.
We resolved within ourselves that we did not deserve good things because we had destroyed so many good things in our time…
In our individual spaces, we remembered when we pleaded with the world not to turn us into monsters, we remember that we were too weak to not take the bait.
We remember when we decided that the world deserved to be ripped to pieces because we were the result of mankind’s selfishness and wickedness, that the world had ignited this everlasting flame that is now trying consuming it”.

I don’t know why I knew this, but I knew that all repentant monsters stood in dark corners and said hurtful things to themselves in their own individual spaces. I also know that as dysfunctional as the world  is, it is sometimes more forgiving of itself than repentant monsters.

Tales from the Children of the Light (Fear)

Fear

Fear is the second time I have ever used chalk on black paper. Tales from the Children of the Light is a series, inspired by the many interesting random strangers I met over summer and how they made me think. But I couldn’t get around to doing this until now because (I guess) writing in France is a lot easier, I usually come up with this stuff at the oddest times (like I came up with Fear at church and the next one at a concerto). Enjoy.

Fear

I think I was afraid…
I was afraid of love and honesty,
because they seemed unattainable.
I was afraid of hatred and deception,
because they could carve out eternal wounds.
I was afraid of seeking perfection because it did not seem to exist.
I was afraid of imperfection because it was not worthy of me.

I think I was afraid of tears because they were worthless.
But I was also scared of not being able to cry because it was an indication that I had become emotionless.
I think I was afraid of the dark because it was seemingly safe. But it lied to me and blinded me. I could not see.
I was afraid of the light because although it trusted me to be able to bear the truth, it revealed so much. And in an instant, I could see everything.

I think above all I was afraid of my fears, they were illogically logical, and they had the power to control and to cripple me.

But only if I let them.

Memories. (Bird)

Bird

I’m not sure if this is a memory or a memory of a dream, but I was walking home with someone. I cant remember if it was a friend or one of my sisters. It was raining and neither of us had an umbrella. I was typically worried about my hair but it wasn’t so bad for me, because once you stop worrying about getting wet, heavy rain (or fat rain, as we referred to it in my memory) is crazy fun. She, on the other hand hated the whole experience; She didn’t like randomly jumping into puddles of water and she did not like the feel of rain on her skin because “it felt like acid”. As I concluded writing this, I became less sure if this was even my memory at all.
I wonder, if memories could be seen physically as an entity, what would it Look like? I imagine its form to be ever-changing and sometimes fading. I imagine it to be inaccurate and terribly flawed. I imagine it to be the least constant thing in the entire universe, because in the same way we can choose to see what we want to see, we are also capable of choosing how we remember certain events. Whether consciously or unconsciously.

There are so many other things I’d like to say about Bird.

Maybe one of these days  I’ll give her her own segment.

Just A ‘Pretty Girl’. (Living without a personality) (OCT 2013)

Just a pretty Girl (2013) By Victoriadeyemi

Season greetings dear readers: it has been ages since I last wrote on my blog. Apologies; I proportion part of the blame on severe writer’s block and the other half on the trauma that came with going back to being a student.

The Ninth sketch form the Black Sketchbook was drawn during my first few weeks at Uni. I have always wanted to be more than just a pretty girl, I could very well handle the days when my mother put me in a dress and tried to make me look pretty for guests or pictures or parties but I always felt constricted and uncomfortable. However the older I grew, the more appealing it was to be just a pretty girl, nothing more, nothing less. I felt like it didn’t help to be deep because depth brought with it a depressing atmosphere; “I was always making the people around me think more than they usually would”. When I did try to be just a pretty girl, I looked in the mirror and it was not me. I was definitely surprised by how long it took me to accomplish ‘the look’,  I was surprised by how different it made me look, but I was mostly surprised by how easily I had caved in. Then I started to think..

What happens when you are no longer conceived as a pretty girl?

What happens when your charm fades and your face is no longer bright?

What happens when you grow old and your back starts to hunch over, you can no longer walk in those stylish heels, and your face is covered in wrinkles and your hair is white and people are no longer drawn to you?

What happens when you start to feel irrelevant and imperfect in a society where the standards are so high?

How far would you go to feel like a pretty girl again?

After all that thinking I laughed because I realized that none of this actually matters If I continue to just be myself.

The Ninth sketch isn’t one of my favorites but I think she definitely nailed the expression I had when I looked in the mirror, surprised but also subtle hint of disappointment. Back then I seldom used coal in my drawings, but I did here. Perhaps I did it as a reflection of my sudden willingness to try new things. I don’t know.

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.

Runaway (Sept 2012)

Runaway By Victoriadeyemi

I got bored of doing things chronologically; in accordance with the lay out of the Black Sketchbook. So I decided to delve further into the past. Runaway is not a member of the Black Sketchbook. No, it is a member of the White Sketchbook. The White Sketchbook was my first ever sketchbook, it was a gift from my Father and it has approximately 30 un-used pages remaining in it. I seldom use it, not because I don’t love it but because it is an A5 Sketchbook and does not allow enough room for expression.

I have also decided to take a different approach on my presentation of the pieces from the White Sketchbook. Therefore I will not be saying anything about what motivated Runaway or how I feel about it. However I will leave a little caption below; (thumbs up to anyone who gets the caption’s reference)

If I could run away,

to the shores of freedom.

Where no one lives.