Elkana Ong'esa

Elkana was born in 1944 in Tabaka, south west of Kisii county, a centre famous for Kisii soapstone carving. He is an artist, a stone sculptor. He has worked with soap stone for so many years until recently when he started working with Granite.

He studied Art in Makerere University, Uganda for his bachelor’s degree and later a Masters at McGill University, Canada. In his practice he has created some of the most amazing and famous stone sculptures by a Kenyan artist. They include, Enyamuchera (bird of peace) in 1978, Dancing birds at US Embassy Nairobi Kenya, the legacy monument for Adventist university Nairobi. Other places he has created sculptures for are, Caltex Oil Company in Texas USA and Coca Cola Olympics Museum.

His interests have led him to experiment with various kinds of stones. He is currently experimenting with basalt from Nandi Hills. He has mentored many artists, introducing them to stones and tools and they have become artists of high repute in their own right.

In 2011, together with other artists friends in Kisii, Elkana started African Stones Talk, an international sculpture symposium. It’s a bi- annual program where invited artists, local and from all over the world, come to Kisii to create stone sculptures. Some of these sculptures can be found at Elkana Ong’esa Museum in Kisii.

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Elkana's Statement for the Exhibition

I’ve gone through a lot in my time; in fact, I’ve died many times and it’s a miracle I’m still here. Death and loss are strange things. I’ve been close to death myself and it has been reported in the media and at large events that I’ve attended that I had passed.  How awkward it was when the speaker realised I was standing just there.  

When you experience many losses and battle through an illness you can’t help but to consider how your own passing will be.  I’ve had many conversations with my relatives about where I will be laid to rest after I pass and after having meetings about this they come back to me just to tell me that I should wait and find out when the time comes.

But right now, at this moment, I’m experiencing many things all at the same time… and they are concrete things, not imagination.  They come in dreams (where almost all my artistic pieces originate) but sometimes these dreams are reality.  These things are beyond works of art or videos but are a million emotions.  We must understand that expressing emotions is a must and I am putting my emotions into this work.  This project, this work, this group has been a beautiful blessing.

“Lala toto lala," is the name of my work for this exhibition.  I used a combination of relief and sculpture in the round. It's of a child lying on her mum's bosom. This depicts the relationship I had with my wife. On the back side it's textured, it's rough… to show where I am at now, it's rough… it's quite rough without her.