Art as ‘medicinal’ from artist-pharmacist, Oluwafunke Saka’s studio

Creativity in its therapeutic value finds mission in the studio of Oluwafunke Saka, an artist whose background comes as asset in art and science fussion.

However, the artist’s works appear to have been trapped between the two extreme poles of art and science as some of her paintings expose the complexity spots of the two fields. Some of her works, which treat the themes of social sciences and mental health provide a pathway in dealing with both complexity and complementary parts of the artist’s choice of two professions.

Has Saka turned the challenge of being sandwiched between art and science into an asset? Two of her works such as Rites of Passage and What the Hands Cannot Hold provide answer. With each presenting symbolisms of their actual contents, Saka proves to be an artist whose depth of intellect goes beyond the regular application of visual expression. In Rites of Passage, one is taken through meditation, focusing transformation, choice, and the journey of thresholds throughout life. Representing such journey in the artist’s interpretation are three doorways such as closed, open to darkness, and open to light.

And the symbolism of the visual contents of the doors explains that each door stands as invitation to step forward, carrying the weight of the past, yet stepping onto an expanded self-acclaimation. To assert that growth, in everyone, is often intertwined with change – and that every passage is part of a larger journey – are some textured branches in the painting, reaching from the edges. Basically, the essence of Rites of Passage is for viewers to reflect on their own thresholds such as the moments of stepping through as both an act of courage and imminent surrender to fate.

Saka, sometimes, takes creative risk that perhaps meant to create curiousity for viewers. For example, what would make an artist create a figure without hands? In a piece titled What the Hands Cannot Hold, the figure of a woman without hands depicts the pretentious character of the female gender who sucks in so much pressure and pains to please everyone. However, in reality, most women have their own share or blame of whatever pressure they go through within the social and cultural fabrics of the environment.

“What have I been forced to hold and what can I finally set down?” The feminist in Saka comes in defence of women who pretends to be superwoman. Perhaps the answer to the artist’s question comes in the figure’s absence of hands. Strangely, the irony of the limbless figure shows that women’s hands are always full of activities. From the challenges of motherhood to holding back all sorts of pains, including tears, at domestic or work environment, the symbolism of the painting depicts superwomen who hold themselves together when everything else is falling apart.

And as the hands represent the strength and spirit of the woman, whatever happens when the limbs are gone is the real lesson the artist aims to share. For the fact that nature does not allow for a vacuum, the spirit of limbless figure exist in that in-between space after the burnout, but before the healing fully settles.

Oluwafunke Saka passed through a Bachelor Degree in Pharmacy, and later used her self-taught profile to obtain a Masters in Fine Art. With a dual background, she brings a lifelong commitment to healing, showing that medicine restores the body, while art becomes medicine for the heart and soul.