“In Peace and Love” by Nina Fabunmi, oil on canvas 30×40″
You are all cordially invited to my solo art exhibition “The Haven” which will be on from Feb 16 – April 9th .
Opening reception will be on Friday Feb 19th 2016 at Atelier Gallery, Academy of Art University, 79 New Montgomery Street, San Francisco, CA, 94105
My paintings capture the energetic splendor, peace and serenity of the Bay Area and the diversity of its people. I am an artist born and bred in Africa, now living and working in San Francisco. Each day I wake up in this beautiful city, I consider it a blessing, a privilege and an honor. San Francisco has become my haven thus when I see beauty and I consider it my artistic duty to capture it.
I have a Bachelors degree in Real Estate, and spent years working in Estate Management, Banking, Broadcasting and Telecommunications all in an effort to seek the fulfillment I always had. I finally retuned to my artistic skills and decided to step it up a notch by embarking on a Masters Degree in Fine Art- Painting at the Academy of Art University (AAU): a decision that positively changed my life. Each moment I spent in a classroom full of like minds, painting from a live model, a photo, plein air painting on the beautiful mountains and beaches of the Bay or just working in my studio, I consider my haven. I am now a graduate and a member of faculty at the AAU; it is an environment that gives me a sense of satisfaction. I am addicted to making art, I see things differently and each day I navigate this gorgeous city or come across an interesting person, I am always thinking of what a great painting the view in front of me will make.
My emotionally charged expressive technique is primarily derived by the use of a palette knife. I paint, paste, scratch, drip, sprinkle and splatter to build layers of texture in order to include details of an unspoken account. I sometimes include symbols and mark making as a tribute to my African Roots.
The Haven is a place, a moment, an emotion, a story, a history, a time in my art in my heart and when I am making art, I am in my safe haven.
I fell in love with ‘the man with a suitcase’. Placed my heart in a jar and gave it to him so that he could take it with him where ever he went. Off and on , he came and left like a ‘no where man’. I wondered where he laid his head at night, whose warm body gave him comfort in my absence, on whose couch did he toss and turn?. My heart in a jar, I walked around feeling lost like a mindless zombie. Lost without one who was lost. He was lost to me though I felt lost without him. I tried to function without a heart, my heart in a jar, in his suitcase he took where ever he went. I dreamt of a home, a dog in the yard, the voices of children playing, the cry of a new born baby. My head in the clouds, I was just a dreamer.
But one day….. I awoke. The intensity of the sun tearing through my window blinds almost blinding me as I opened my eyes. I found my heart in a jar by my bedside. It was beating ferociously begging me to take it back. I stared at my jar, I held it in my hands, drew it close to my chest, that I should feel my own heart beat again, even though it wasn’t inside of me. I turned around and the door was open, I saw the tracks of his suitcase on the floor, the air was slightly stained with the smell of his cologne, the front door unlocked, his footprints in the sand, trail fading off with the distance. He had become a memory. I held my beating heart in my hands, I looked up to the morning sun and the chilly wind filtered through my clothes. A new day had come.
I grabbed a shovel and dug a hole in the ground. I buried my beating heart in the sand, that one day it shall be found by the one who will make it his treasure. My heart in the sand.
The sound of the ocean waves rocking back and forth at the beach, smacking against the rocks they mould with each wave like a rhythmic dance to their own tunes and underneath the red fortress of the Golden Gate Bridge. I have been serenaded by the music of the sea.
This is my latest tiny piece. I find a lot of peace in painting the beaches that surround me in this beautiful Bay Area which I am so blessed to be in.
ninartz 