Colleen Madamombe

Colleen Madamombe was born in Harare in 1964. She began sculpting in 1984 at the Chapungu Sculpture Park, a 20-acre sculpture park in the outskirts of Harare founded in 1970 to promote Zimbabwe’s stone sculpture movement and offering sculpting workshops. In the past 25 years Colleen has become one of Zimbabwe’s most prominent sculptors. As a woman sculptor in this traditionally male-dominated field, she has encouraged many women to pursue a sculpting career. “I encourage all women to try sculpting. It is not an easy work, especially if you are married and have a family to nurture. Let me tell you my story. I was once married, and my husband was a sculptor. Today, I provide for myself and my seven children. I tell you, anything is possible if you believe.” Madamombe’s main subject is women. She says, “I like sculpting women. I create women of all ages and women from all walks of life. I create women being women: women at work, bearing children, going to the field, sisters holding hands; women coming home, from the field with the harvest, or from shopping; women with their children; the respected grandmother, mothers swinging their babies…” Despite the weight of the material – Madamombe works in opal and springstone - and the voluptuousness of her female forms, her sculptures produce an effect of lightness and airiness thanks to the dynamism of her compositions and the combination of a highly polished finish that the artist reserves for the faces and hands of her subjects and the textured dresses and attire that are often richly decorated with flowers and patterns.