Surrounded in a community where fine art is usually not appreciated, Yakubu Matina is from Savelugu; a suburb of Northern Region. She is a final year student of visual art at Pong-Tamale Senior High School.
Matina learns how to sew when she is not in school and spends her free time drawing. Even though she started drawing at her infancy, Matina took art seriously in 2014. She was inspired by her friends and her teacher who saw her potential in drawing and advised her to pursue that talent.
“My teacher saw that I focus much on drawing than other subjects and performed better in creative art in quizzes and examinations,” she added.
Yakubu Matina
Matina finds the scenery of nature so intriguing and draws inspiration from mere sightseeing to put her feelings into art.
She often draws humans, animals, plants and other imaginary structures. Due to her tight schedules in school, she draws at least once a week.
“In primary school, my mom tried driving me out of drawing, but my teacher convinced her to leave me.” Matina shared a challenge she faced in her childhood.
Yakubu Matina
She also recalled how her father felt disappointed in her pursuing visual arts as a course of study, because, he thought it wasn’t a valuable pursuit.
Matina also shared with our SDGs live reporter; Zakaria Abdul-Hakim that many males approach her in the pretense of trying to support her and later try proposing a relationship to her.
She sees herself in the next five years as a professional artist and hopes to have or about to complete her tertiary education.
Matina wants to read computer science in the tertiary so that she can apply her computer skills to harness her drawing skills, especially, in this fast-growing digital world.
She also wants to open an art center where she can train other females like her (people who often find it difficult to express their selves in public) to use art to realize their self-worth whilst making money from it.
To Matina, drawing has sent her to several places she never imagined and she is eventually finding her voice. She also makes money from the pieces of drawings she does for friends.
Zakaria Abdul Hakim Cisse || Sanatu Zambang SDGs Live Report