In her conversation, Yemisi Aribisala delves into the intricate relationship between writing and painting, exploring how these forms of artistic expression influence and complement each other. She shares insights on her creative process, discussing how the vivid imagery in her mind translates into both words and visual art. Yemisi highlights the emotional and thematic connections between her paintings and written works, offering a unique perspective on how storytelling can transcend mediums. This interview provides a deep dive into her artistic journey and the ways in which she navigates and intertwines these two disciplines.
Libretto: Hello, Yemisi. We are beyond pleased to have you join us.
Yemisi: Thank you for having me
Libretto: Can you talk about your journey as both a writer and a painter, and how you discovered your passion for both mediums?
Yemisi: I wasn’t passionate about either writing or painting (not in the beginning) because I was discouraged from pursuing either vocation. My parents bluntly dismissed writing as a viable profession. As for painting, it was deemed off-limits due to generational prohibition; my father, despite his exceptional talent as a painter, was dissuaded by his own parents. This legacy of prohibition naturally influenced my own inclinations. Consequently, I approached writing with little confidence, and often wrote in secret. Although I dabbled in painting for three decades, it wasn’t until my relocation to London in my 40s that I truly embraced it as a career.
Libretto: What was the process of writing your first book like for you? Has there been any radical changes between how you wrote your first book and how you write now?
Yemisi: I wrote my first book piecemeal. I had no intentions of writing a book. I was simply fulfilling an obligation to write every week for the Nigerian newspaper 234Next, something I did without any long-term plans. My weekly column was called Food Matters, and I had to file to the wonderful journalist Amma Ogan before Thursday every week. Due to my family’s attitude to writing there was no way I could sit at a table and proclaim that I was a writer. That would not have gone well. Regrettably, I wrote with very little confidence and with no expectations. Perhaps I was merely content that I could write at all. Writing in this manner ingrained itself as a habit that I am now striving to overcome. Even now, with the freedom to write without justifying my profession—to the consternation of my agent—I persist in writing piecemeal, a practice that hampers the process, especially when attempting to compose a book. Even for a collection of essays, this approach significantly slows progress to a snail’s pace. Thus, no radical changes, just the same detrimental habits that I am diligently endeavoring to shed.
Libretto: Can you discuss the significance of storytelling in both your visual art and written narratives, and how they complement each other in your creative process??
Yemisi: Storytelling is most likely a superpower and imagination is the fuel of that power. Imagination fuels both writing and painting. One source for both. And I have a very powerful imagination, which is something that can be both a blessing and a curse. The irony is that we are advised as writers to show and not tell even though it is ‘telling’. I think storytelling is the ability to show with words; it means you create images in the mind through the use of words. How well you achieve this and carry the reader along determines your skill as a writer. Visual art serves as a shortcut, akin to mainlining, offering the advantage of delivering messages intravenously. With it, you can express truly provocative ideas or narratives that might otherwise incite strong reactions. But because it’s conveyed through imagery, it easily slips past their guard. I suppose to be a good artist you need the superpower of storytelling. I don’t know anything that engages like a proficiently told story whether in words or through images. Maybe it is an advantage to be a writer that paints because you are already used to thinking of motion from left to write on a piece of paper, and in painting it helps when your image(s) move(s) under the eye.
Libretto: Can you share any anecdotes or experiences where your writing directly influenced your painting or vice versa?
Yemisi: I write a monthly article as part of an innovative cooperative of 60 writers – the brainchild of founding editor Maria Bustillos. It is called Flaming Hydra. Part of my monthly offering is an illustration of whatever I have chosen to write on. And my last piece started by introducing ‘a couple’ who own an antique shop in Somerset West, Western Cape. One of the shortcuts that I hate to use in writing is describing people in sexual terms- because I think when you do that, it immediately kidnaps the thinking of the reader and they start to quickly fill in the gaps of what the people you are describing are like. Which to my mind ends up a disservice to the person. I can get away with not saying more in writing than that they are a couple… I do eventually give it away I suppose. In real life, it took me months of going into the shop and befriending them to determine what kind of couple they are, but that slow introduction also helped me to really get to know them as individuals fulsomely. I think an attempt to visually illustrate that slowness is a gift to the reader, so my illustration of the couple shows them both wearing pink shirts and it stops the mind (I hope) to linger and think before running away with our usual stereotypes about how sexual behaviour informs identity.
Libretto: How do you navigate the balance between realism and abstraction in your paintings, and does this balance differ in your writing?
Yemisi: I don’t over think the balance of realism and abstraction at all. Not especially with regards to painting. I am also a dreamer, having many vivid dreams while asleep. I realise that dreams don’t worry their heads about realism and abstraction and mix and match with rationale that is not easily discovered. This complicates the language of dreams and expands the dictionary of symbols, which dreams need in explaining themselves and fitting into logical thinking. Given the nature of my writing, particularly because much of it is non-fiction, it’s become necessary for me to exercise greater restraint.
Libretto: How do you navigate the relationship between words and images in your creative process, particularly when working on projects that incorporate both?
Yemisi: It really depends on the project in front of me. I usually rely heavily on instincts and I mostly let my imagination lead.
Libretto: How do you approach character development in your written works, and do you find yourself visually imagining your characters as you write?
Yemisi: Visually conjuring them up, yes. You have to remember that I don’t write fiction so character development has pretty much been done for me by God Almighty. All I have to do is to remember what I have seen and heard, and write it down with as much integrity as I can manage. I really do believe that real life is more gripping than fiction so as far as my writing and character development go, I have a few real life evil geniuses that I know personally and can use without altering one little thing about them.
Libretto: Can you discuss any collaborations you’ve undertaken where your writing and painting intersected, and what you learned from these experiences?
Yemisi: With regards to Flaming Hydra that I mentioned above, I am committed to writing and illustrating each article that I submit every month. This is a new kind of commitment for me because it forces me to use both skills side by side with the hope that they enhance the other, yet have the ability to engage and inform if one is taken away or is absent. I like to think of painting as my right hand and writing as my left because painting is easier for me than writing. Crafting the words help me think of the parameters of the visual art that accompanies it. Drawing images to accompany words opens up layers of meaning that when put back into words enhances the writing. A way to expand this is to say that writing by hand helps me think in a different way than using the computer keyboard, yet the slowness of writing by hand frustrates me when there are many words to write down. Therefore drawing and painting fills that gap of strengthening the pathways of creativity between my brain and hand. It is like being ambidextrous.
Libretto: How do you stay motivated and inspired to create amidst the demands of both writing and painting, and do you find one medium rejuvenates your creativity in the other?
Yemisi: One significant weakness I have is procrastination and at its base is a lack of confidence connected to my beginnings. I’ve mentioned the struggle before so I won’t rehash the details. The only thing I know that short-circuits this delay in entering and committing to a project, is excitement about what I am writing about or a strong push based on how the subject matter has affected me. How this translates is that I end up writing for innovators like Chimurenga, Cape Town and Flaming Hydra where I am allowed to write what I like and I am edited with respect. Till today, many proposals that I submit to places like Granta, or the Economist’s 1843 etc are rejected because I have difficulty writing within the margins. So what I find truly motivating is writing as I like for people who are as open minded as possible to receiving a unique angle and voice. With regards to the interplay between mediums, I refer to it where you ask about collaborations and intersections.
Libretto: Can you discuss the significance of your first published book, “Longthroat Memoirs: Soups, Sex, and the Nigerian Taste Buds”, and how it differs from your previous works? And why the title?
Yemisi: The first part of the title comes from a chapter about watching vendors pass by, from the balcony of my grandparent’s home in Oke-Ado, Ibadan. The second part- Soups, Sex and Nigerian Taste Buds was purely about the publisher’s insecurity at having a book that didn’t fit into the usual categories, and applying a sex as sales strategy to the insecurity. I still find this slightly disagreeable. Many people have ‘informed me’ there isn’t any sex worth talking about in the book and of course I agree with them. With regards to the significance of the book, I believe it successfully codified a conversation on Nigerian food that had caught fire years before on 234Next and carried the convo to the global dining table. It introduced Nigerian food intellectually to the world and opened a unique door of interaction with Nigerian culture through the lens of our love for food. With regards to the Northern hemisphere and its sometimes condescending attitude to other people’s food: it put the experts in their place. Something that needed doing in a world that still attempts to place ‘french cooking’ at the pinnacle of gastronomy. The book provides a counterpoint for thinking about food snobbery and the ridiculousness of creating rankings for things that are as personal as tastebuds.
Libretto: Still on the subject of your published book “Longthroat Memoirs: Soups, Sex, and the Nigerian Taste Buds”. How did you feel when you found out your first published book won the John Avery Prize at the Andre Simon Book Awards and, won second placein the Best in the World in African category, and also shortlisted for the Art of Eating Prize?
Yemisi: I was surprised. It was totally unexpected. Like I said previously, I was just happy to be able to write, then to be able to see my book published. That was a huge privilege. The Andre Simon was a lovely long exhalation at the end of 8 and some years. I hadn’t been able to travel to London to receive the John Avery prize in the Andre Simon awards because I couldn’t afford a flight ticket but it was wonderful to be in the background at home in the Western Cape and have the congratulatory messages flood in from the point of the shortlisting. I think in fact I preferred the view from where I was, thousands of miles away because I was able to take it all in, silently, and be very appreciative and shocked and happy, and dumbfounded without being self-conscious and having to do it in public. The John Avery Prize in the Andre Simon awards of course trumped the other two experientially because I actually won a prize, and the award winning food journalist and historian Bee Wilson wrote a small tribute.
Libretto: How do you approach the initial stages of ideating and conceptualising a new story, and what factors influences you to settle on a particular narrative?
Yemisi: Narrative seems to be the most settled part of the process, even though this idea of ideating and conceptualising is too highfalutin for me. If I thought in those terms, I would convince myself not to write anything. Quite frankly I just sit and start to type words out. I don’t write by hand unless I am out of reach of my laptop. It might be obvious from the many detours in narrative in my work that I rarely plan a path. On many occasions, huge parts of complicated texts have to be cropped out to make it simpler to read. And this ends up being the editor’s job. I suppose what I am trying to say is that planning is rarely part of the plan. And I am in awe of writer friends of mine like Yewande Omotosho who plan and consequently have many books to show for it.
Libretto: What advice would you give to aspiring artists who are interested in pursuing multiple creative outlets, like writing and painting?
Yemisi: I would say start to do whatever it is that you want to do regardless of the disadvantages and discouragement. There is just going to be so much of both littered along the twists and turns of creativity. I don’t think published writers or artists stress enough the rejection that doesn’t really stop at whatever stage. Someone will still say ‘I don’t like Yemisi’s work’ regardless of how much work there is out there. And rejection in a roundabout way is good for you. It is important not to take this to heart and to continue to plough on. As a way of putting one’s foot in the door, I suggest de-emphasising money. Before I ever got paid for anything, I was unpaid for many things. The trick is to know when to charge and do so appropriately. These two vocations that I have chosen are notorious for harbouring artists with low self-esteem who then go on to become very bitter. The corollary is that there are many things I didn’t charge for that opened many crucial doors. Lastly, be instinctive and careful with advice on what works and what doesn’t. Many things that achieved great success for me whether with regards to words or images were first definitively put down by experts and gatekeepers.
Libretto: How do you see your writing and painting evolving in the future, and do you have any upcoming projects or exhibitions that you’re particularly excited about?
Yemisi: I would really love to publish a book that is the combination of images and words that behaves in the way that I have described above and hope that my present commitment will build into that. There are a few other projects I would much rather talk about in the future when there is more to say.
Yemisi Aribisala is a Nigerian prize winning author, writer, visual artist and illustrator, best known for her thematic use of food writing to explore Nigerian culture. Her first book, Longthroat Memoirs: Soups Sex & Nigerian Tastebuds won the 2016 John Avery Prize at the Andre Simon Book Awards, and was shortlisted for the 2018 Art of Eating awards, and the Gourmand World Cookbook awards. Her writing has been published worldwide in The New Yorker, Vogue UK, World of Interiors Magazine, Johannesburg Review of Books, Critical Muslim, Sandwich Magazine, Cape Town’s Chimurenga Chronic, CNN travel and in New Daughters of Africa: An International Anthology of Writing by Women of African Descent. Her portraits of Nigerian writers can be viewed at Google Arts & Culture, other illustrations in Flaming Hydra, the writers cooperative where she pairs words and images alongside 60 other illustrious writers. She lives in London with her children.
