Marianne Houtkamp

Marianne Houtkamp has spent many years in Africa, in the Sahara, in Kenya and Tanzania, bringing unforgettable memories and unfailing ties to the people she shared, and often relieved suffering .
Sensitive to their sometimes disastrous situation, moved by their dignity, their courage, their pride in all circumstances, she had no choice but to give them a share of eternity through her sculptures.
All his work is crying truth, respect for those men and women whose lives are so different and far from our own. Remote if we keep to the place and the material aspect of existence, but how close it is when we are dealing with feelings, joys or distress, destitution in the face of misery, Sickness, war, or exile.
Whether she represented them life size or in reduction, Marianne Houtkamp made Maasai and Bororos that she met a striking portrait. Tall silhouettes, with limbs of extreme delicacy, with elongated faces where all the difficulties of their wandering life are read, they have the mystery and righteousness of their dignity. One feels in them proud beings, ready to die rather than bend.
Concerned about the slightest detail, Marianne Houtkamp studied at length her subjects, their clothes, their heavy adornments, their signs of belonging to the tribe, identity card of each of them. The colors of his bronzes, of unheard-of richness, remain faithful to those of suits or jewels worn. It sometimes includes natural stones identical to those of tree ornaments.
People of the bush or the desert, nomadic stockbreeders constantly faced with increasing difficulties, men with distant horizons, their eyes lost infinitely in the greatest mystery and in a restless silence.
Their faces reflect an unfathomable sadness, an insurmountable weariness, the anguish of tomorrow, a kind of fatalistic resignation in front of the magnitude of the disasters that are their daily lot. Watchful, motionless, watchful, noble and mysterious shadows standing out in the savannah or the sands of the desert, the artist wanted to immortalize in bronze these tribes in great danger of disappearance.
In a giant chess game, Marianne Houtkamp brought together Masaïs and Bororos, choosing for each piece of his chessboard the symbols of their respective lives and cultures. A small piece of Africa in a short summary.