By KARI MUTU

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Chelenge Van Rampelberg is one of the foremost sculptor artists in Kenya. A retrospective look at her long career is happening at the Nairobi Contemporary Arts Institute (NCAI).

The Long Way Home follows her artistic journey over four decades with more than 50 paintings, sculptures, printmaking, ink and engravings from Van Rampelberg, NCAI’s collection or on loan from private owners.

Van Rampelberg started painting in the early 1980s when her lastborn went to nursery school, leaving her with much time on her hands.

Aside from short arts courses at Nairobi’s Alliance Francaise, Gallery Watatu and the Ngecha Artist Association, she is entirely self-taught.

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Her inspiration comes from life experiences, her observations of human behaviour and reflections of the outside world.

“Sometimes the shape of wood determines work,” she said.

Her semi-abstract work centres heavily around women, their place in society, black beauty and gender inequality. Family and motherhood is a strong talking point particularly the struggles of raising children because, “Mothers carry everything,” said Van Rampelberg, 62 years old.

Her artworks portray the cultural role of women as the backbone of the home, raised to become good wives and mothers whilst fewer responsibilities are placed upon the boychild.

Untitled piece by Naomi van Rampelberg at One Off Contemporary Art Gallery Ltd in Nairobi, Kenya February 25, 2023. PHOTO | POOL

The Vessels series of wood sculptures have women in different postures of labouring and caring giving.

“Women are like vessels of love, pain, joy and hate and should be respected and valued.”

Van Rampelberg’s first wood sculpture was in 1985 after an avocado tree fell in her garden, providing a chance to experiment with a new medium. The result was a touching mother-and-child sculpture called My Mum and I, on display at NCAI, which captures the artist’s deep and tender connection to her own mother.

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Other works enquire into religion and Christianity’s stand on various matters, such as the fall of humanity because of Eve’s temptation in the garden of Eden which, she says, started her “war with God.”

In 1996, she produced the sublime Adam and Eve fantasy figures in ebony wood, depicting the first man and woman in her own image and likeness.

As a child, she liked to watch the menfolk building traditional huts using hammers, axes, machetes and nails, instruments that form part of her sculpting toolbox in the open-sided shed that she works in.

Van Rampelberg “talks” to her sculptures while working since they are as precious to her as children – she is a mother and a grandmother. Her artwork is like a part of her soul, she said, hence the difficulty in letting them go for sale because, “I cannot sell my soul.”

The collection of oil paintings on paper pays homage to Van Rampelberg’s rural upbringing in Kericho County in Western Kenya, a theme she often returns to.

Painted in narrative style, there are scenes of the countryside, villages, cattle and of bathing in the river.

Tuala town, on the southern boundary of the Nairobi National Park, is the location of her home studio, where she works to the sounds of bird calls and Dorper sheep grazing in the neighbourhood. Being close to nature is her panacea for life’s ups and downs, grateful that she can let out pain and express her emotions through art.

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A feeling of serenity pervades all her work, even when it examines difficult subject matters. Perhaps it has something to do with Van Rampelberg’s personality. She has a gentle, quiet manner and an ever-present soft smile.

Humanity and its connection to the natural world come together in her art and she will sometimes distort familiar figures as if to challenge deep-rooted viewpoints. The sculpture Bibi Tembo in jacaranda wood is a reimagined female with a trunk-like limb growing out of her forehead.

The ink-engraved painting Children Playing Under the Moon and Stars has young dogs frolicking outdoors on a starlight, the way she did as a child.

A section of the exhibition looks at discrimination and ingrained marginalisation by society or the church around issues of sexual orientation, people with disabilities or albinism.

“These children are part of us and we don't have to hide or get rid of them,” she said.

“They're human, how do we help them to accept themselves?”