Safety is paramount for sculptor Motondi

For Kenyan sculptor Gerard Motondi, winning the Olympic Torch Award in 2008 marks the highest point of a career that has seen his works exhibited at some of the world’s major art centres.

The Olympic Fine Arts 2008 was a cultural competition organised by the International Olympic Committee and the Organising Committee of the Beijing Games on the theme “The Olympic Spirit – China and the World”.

Motondi’s sculpture, “Inseparable”, a two metre-high artwork depicting fish holding each other in harmonious movement was selected from among 10,000 entries from around the world; it won a replica of the Olympic Torch.

Having worked on the award- winning soapstone sculpture for two months in Tabaka, Kisii, the artist says the symbolism of the piece is highly significant.

“It is like a family bonded in unity, similar to the global family, where no country can be separated.” The sculpture is now permanently displayed at the Olympic Fine Arts Museum in the Tai Miao Temple in Beijing.

Since 2002, Motondi has exhibited in the US, Spain, Turkey, China, Russia, India, Israel, Egypt and South Korea but his proudest moment was when he won the Olympics award.

“I have exhibited in different parts of the world but the Olympics is, no doubt, my best achievement,” he says.

Motondi was born on April 20, 1965, and grew up in a traditional stone-carving community in Kisii and first picked up his skills by watching old men carving stone.

“Sculpting came naturally to me because I grew up in a soapstone mining area,” says Motondi.

It was while a student at Eregi Teachers’ College from 1985 to 1987 that his art teacher noticed his exceptional talent and encouraged him to develop his skills.

“I received a boost of confidence during my college days and started painting and drawing consistently,” he says.

MENTORSHIP

Later in Kisii, he met world-renowned Kenyan sculptor Elkana Ongesa, who mentored him in the art of soapstone carving.

Ongesa’s stone sculpture, “Enyamuchera” (Bird of Peace) has been standing at the Unesco headquarters in Paris. France, since 1980.

The two artists have worked in close collaboration since, including organising the first Africa Stone Talk Sculpture Symposium in 2011 in Tabaka, where experts from around the world discussed art, stone mining and related issues.

The event has since become an annual forum, attracting some of the world’s finest sculptors to work with their counterparts in Kisii for a month.

Using his international profile, Motondi has also lent his efforts to highlight the soapstone-mining town of Tabaka in Kisii and the perilous conditions of the workers there.

In September this year, the master carver visited the UK on behalf of the British charity Action on Poverty to display some of his carvings and to publicise a project on training and improving the livelihoods of soapstone workers in Kisii.

These highly skilled stone carvers work in hazardous conditions with low pay and no job security. Since Motondi started training the soapstone carvers in Tabaka, there have been no fatal accidents in an area that in the past witnessed at least four deaths every year in the mines.

The world-commissioned sculptor says: “I wanted to get involved in the project because I saw the agony of my people while growing up in Kisii. I saw people struggle to feed their families and I vowed to help with the improved techniques I have learnt over the years.”

He graduated with a Bachelor’s degree in Fine Arts from Kenyatta University in 2006 and has taught Arts and Crafts at Asumbi Teachers’ College since 2006. He is currently studying for a Masters in Public Art Sculpture.

Motondi was awarded the Head of State Commendation in 2011 for his contribution to the Arts and “branding Kenya’s image positively at local and international exhibitions.”

In Kenya, his monumental sculpture is at the English Point Marina in Diani, which is the result of a competition held by the Diani Beach Art Gallery in 2012.

His design proposal was selected from more than two dozen local and international entries to form part of the water feature in the only Marina project on the East African coast.