Heinz Sterzenbach
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Two Hunters with Bull 3, Watercolor/Indian Ink, Deckle-Edged Paper, 9,3x13,4 inch, 1997. From the Series "African Impressions". The series African Impressions developed in a workshop in Umbria - two years after my Kenya journey (1989) and the continuation of the series of 1997 developed in my studio in Alt-Heiligensee. The contacts with the Massai people living in Kenya inspired me to this series, whereby it was clear to me that the Massai does not hunt bulls. The Massais are herdsmen, who hold cattle, sheep and goats, donkeys serving them as load animals. Most Massais follow still their traditional way of life. After the children the cattle are the most important in their life, because they believe that the God Enkai gave them to them. Only a Massai of averagely abundance, who has at least 50 cattle, is however regarded as rich, even if he has children. The animals are slaughtered, with exception with special ceremonies, rarely because of their meat. Instead they supply the Massai with everything they need for their daily life: Milk and blood for nutrition, skins for sleeping and for sandals, finally they serve also as payment means for the dowry or for the repayment of a punishment. The slim, high-grown Massais have me strongly impressed and probably therefore emerges it a few years later representative into my pictures. In addition I have been inspired from the Japanese pen-and-ink drawing. So I "threw" the "warrior" with black ink in an impulsive, fast momentum on a handmade paper painted with several layers of watercolors, whereby movement came into the pictures. The developing process of the African Impressions, in addition, their formal expression reminds of East Asian mark traditions and the cave painting of the Cro Magnon time. The red hood is more a free invention of me, in order “to put the lid on the picture” and to set a prominent point in the picture. The bulls in my pictures remind of the rites of the Massai: no Massai ceremony takes place without a
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