METAL SCULPTURE
“There is that in me – I do not know what it is but I know it is in me. Wretch’d and sweaty – calm and cool then my body becomes, I sleep – I sleep long. I do not know it – it is without name – it is a word unsaid, it is not in any dictionary, utterance, symbol. Something it swings on more than the earth I swing on, To it the creation is the friend whose embracing awakes me. Perhaps I might tell more. Outlines! I plead for my brothers and sisters. Do you see O my brothers and sisters? It is not chaos or death – it is form, union, plan – it is eternal life – it is Happiness.” Walt Whitman
After my 2015 solo exhibit of Latitude Zero at Kinshasa’s Trust Merchant Bank’s exhibition hall, Le Monde des Flamboyants, the director’s wife, a kind-hearted patroness of Congolese arts, asked me, “What will consume you now that you can’t scurry around the world?” I didn’t have an answer. I simply knew I had to stay true to my poetic vision and continue creating. I had always felt an instinctual pull toward metal sculpture. “I need to learn how to weld,” I impulsively responded. She beamed, "I have the perfect contact for you."
Eddy Mbikulu, an accomplished Congolese artist with a heart of gold and a smile longer than the Congo River, became my mentor. I was amazed by his metalworking skills and dedication despite the challenging political turmoil and daily hardships in Congo. Under his guidance, I learned stick welding and discovered how every found object, from the mundane to the exquisite, had its own unique song. I learned to transform the outward inward and then the inward outward, listening to the tune of different objects and finding the harmony within to create structural melodies.
