I met an interesting young man and we discussed. He’s a realism artist. What I love about this young man is his perseverance, focus and humility.
His name is ajayi ademola clement; A realism artist from Nigeria and also a student of fine and applied Art. Another cool thing I noticed about Clement is that he draws with his left.
Majors on pencil and pen media. According to him, his major reason for adopting pencil and ballpoint pen is unavailability of materials.
Me: While growing up, I noticed a lot of discouragement from the society about studying art even till now. What inspired you to study fine and applied art?
Clement: My passion for art started in my secondary school. My art teacher (l love his work so much) and my mentor mr Olatundun bimbo alabi, inspired me to take art as a course.
Though a lot people try to discourage me by tell me how stressful studying fine arts can be and the requirement of spending a lot of money sometimes to fund assignments.
Irrespective of the discouragement I still wanted to do art anyway.
I love art and I aspire to be an art educator in the nearest future. And if God permits I’ll love to be a professor of art someday.
These were my motivation to take the challenged.
Me: From your artworks I see you use more of pencil and pen media, what inspired this decision?
Clement: Since the beginning, the only media available for me to work with are pencil and pen.
I’m used to them and I always wanted to try them out to produce hype-realistic art.
Me: If you’ll choose between pen and pencil, which will it be?
Clement: Hmmm…it’s hard to choose, But let me say pen.
Me: At this stage, do you commercialize your art? If yes how often do you get commissioned work?
Clement: I live in oyo town, where artwork is not much appreciated.
So I rarely get commissions. If I should compare last year to this year, I think this year is better. And
I charge for commissions.
Me: What are the challenges you face as an artist?
Clement: Here in Oyo, you can barely see where art materials are sold; Even if It’s just a pencil I want to purchase I travel as far as Ibadan city to get it.
Me: I see you do a lot of portrait, which part of the face gives you challenge the most?
Clement:Maybe the eyes; I still believe with patience every problem can be solved in art.
Me: Do you have any role model or mentor?
Clement: Like I have said earlier, Olatundun bimbo alabi is my mentor and I have a lot of role models which includes him, professor Dele jegede, and Titus agbara.
Me: I saw your pen portrait of the footballer, that’s actually my favourite; How long did it take you to finish it?
Clement: I can’t remember the exact duration; i think I did it within three weeks.
Me: There are lots of people out there who have passion for art but discouraged to express themselves. What word of encouragement do you have for them?
Clement:They should know that giving up is not an option and as long as they have the talent, they should never stop.
Wrapping Thing up
I keep wondering how the world will be like without creativity. Life itself will be boring. How will the sun look like without color, or the heavens without cloud and rainbows. I wonder how life will be without Creative minds.
We have heard from AJayi Clement, “giving up is not an option”. Every journey starts with the decision to take the first step; Follow your dreams. Be inspired!