Irene Wanjiku

Wanjiru is a wood and stone sculptor. She lives and works in Nairobi.

She is famous for the faces she sculpts in wood. She often works against the grain of her wood, and her sculptures often combine organic shapes created from the line that evolves naturally from the wood; constructions, built with exquisite control, seem to defy the wood. For wanjiru, there is a connection between working for family; and working on wood.

'I see a piece of wood; it says many things to me. I see faces calling out to me, beseeching me to bring them out. when this is done, the wood are something new. So I have to make something out of the rest of the piece. I like to use the axe, to see what life I can bring to the parts of the material that do not talk to me then. Am a mother. Apart from performing household chores and doing all those daily things that everyone does. You do not do those things for yourself. You fell, ah, there's this thing here to be done and I am the person to do it. Making sculpture is different. its a job different from all those others that I do.