Black's Art Challenge

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Made with Logo Maker app

A few weeks ago, a friend challenged me.
He would come up with a drawing or painting on any topic and I would write a short story about it. Easy right?

One
Title: Hollow
At first glance, it is easy to say that a man can be seen in the tree but with a closer look, you begin to realize things are not the way they appear.

This drawing reveals something about the nature of man.
You can see when you take a closer look that the leaves or rather the tree is made out of a face.

The roots of this tree is what makes the man himself, his struggles, challenges and the things we cannot fully see his background. The trunk of the tree is not straight, it is bent in such a way that we get a glimpse of the man. Beyond his face, we realize his journey of becoming is not easy. He came from somewhere and his experiences have shaped him into becoming who is now.

Inside this portrait, we are shown a stern-looking man, viewing us with the same intensity we use to look at him. His lips are drawn into a straight line allowing us to know that even if he has a lot to say, he won't so that we can see him with an unbiased mind. He looks at us straight into the eye and dares us to say something about him, just anything that comes up in our minds. His brows are raised slightly to allowing us to know that he sees us but he is worried that we would see him wrongly for what he is not.

He is not a tree even if you see leaves and point at them, you can see the tiny branches they came from and how easy is it for us to make an assumption of who he is. He is just a man showing us the nature of his being and daring us to make just one more wrong assumption of who he is and who he can be. After all, we are just humans blinded by what it seems to be and are not ready to look beyond and grasp what he has freely shown.


Two
Title: Out of his head
black and white 

He gazes on just barely holding his head above water. He has come to accept the way everything is like now, the disappointment and the fact that everything refuses to go according to plan. It is easy you know, accepting things the way they are and extremely tough to fight and challenge them and change it to what it can be. 

He appears to stay afloat just going through but inwards he is free, free because the man he wants to be is not trapped in that space with him. The man he wants to be is a bit different from every other person. The man he wants to be maybe weird and out of this world, some dare say deranged but he is unbothered. He can be what he chooses to be, even if right now he is focused on staying afloat, the man he wants to be can walk on water and can face every challenge in his way. He is sure that he would survive this moment and it is all the hope needed to continue even when everything seems a lot out of place and at the brink of chaos.

As lonely and sad as this painting appears, I see a man that refuses to be limited by what he faces, that protects himself from the world and chooses to be whatever he whats to be. This is a picture of freedom.

So what do you think?

You can follow the artist on
IG: Blackdspiritual
Twitter: @black_spiritual
Contact: (+234) 0812 634 3053
 
Do have an amazing week, 
See you in August.
The Estherian

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