From Kenya to Kambu
How two rollers in the Kenyan sky inspired my latest sculpture
When I travelled to Kenya in October 2025, I knew the trip would stay with me. It was my first time in Africa, and over the course of the journey, I encountered wildlife in ways I had previously only seen in photographs and film. From the landscapes of the Masai Mara to the coast at Mombasa, there were moments everywhere that I knew I would carry home with me.
One of those moments came from a bird I hadn't expected to become so fascinated by: the lilac-breasted roller. They are a small but striking bird, with plumage that looks as if it has been painted from an artist’s palette. I saw rollers throughout my journey, perched along roadsides and acacia trees in the Masai Mara, as they are widespread across Africa.
But on my final morning, on the beaches of Mombasa, I witnessed something I had been so eager to see: two rollers rising together in a courtship flight, moving with extraordinary control and agility. As their name suggests, the two birds rolled together in mid-air, creating this incredible display of colour and movement. It was one of those wildlife moments that I knew I would eventually want to make something from. That moment stayed with me long after I returned home. I came home knowing that somehow, I wanted to translate that feeling and moment into sculpture.
Upon my return to the studio, the roller was the first subject I wanted to explore. I had so many images in my head of how I wanted the sculpture to look. More than anything, I wanted to capture the elegance and freedom I had watched in the sky that morning.
As with all my sculptures, I started by researching the anatomy and creating feather templates, which I then developed into the wing and tail templates. I sculpted the roller in clay in a sideways, banking-in-flight pose, allowing me to manipulate the wings and feathers to suggest the air moving through them. I wanted the finished bird to feel weightless, almost suspended in the sky, rather than simply posed in flight.
I made a mould of the clay original and cast it in marble. From there, I developed the elegant spiral base, giving it a soft, cloud-like, ethereal patina. With so much colour in the roller itself, I wanted the base to complement it without competing for attention, almost allowing it to disappear beneath the bird.
The Paper Patina process was a real challenge with Kambu. The feathers are small, and there are so many different colours to work with. Using my templates, I created the wings and tail, painting the deep blues as I went. I used papers ranging from light blue to lilac, and light brown to turquoise, but many of these colour variations had to be painted onto the paper before I could even begin cutting the feathers.
Once each individual feather had been hand-cut and painted, I layered them over the body, gradually building up the wings, tail, and plumage. I then returned to the finished feathers with paint, blending the colours together, adding highlights and creating greater depth. Finally, a touch of iridescent paint brought the whole piece together.
Kambu will always be a piece I hold close to my heart. It is my first sculpture inspired by my journey through Kenya, a country where I experienced some of the most extraordinary wildlife encounters of my life, and it feels like my first response to everything I came home carrying with me.
The name Kambu is Swahili for lilac-breasted roller, so it felt like a fitting tribute to the bird itself, but also to the place where this sculpture began. More than anything, I wanted Kambu to capture that feeling of watching those two birds disappear into the Kenyan sky, the colour, movement, and freedom of a moment that I knew I would never forget. I couldn’t bring that moment home with me, but I could try to recreate it.
You can see more images and details of Kambu here.
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