Roger Jessop, sculptor, painter and multi-media artist, comes from a well-established Kenyan family with his parents having been born there. He lives with his wife, Carol, on a palm-fringed beach to the north of Mombasa and spends his days in the sunshine under azure skies. The clatter of his workshop, and the soughing of the waves of the Indian Ocean provide the background music for his work.

Roger takes his inspiration from local themes such as flowers, beetles, birds and butterflies. These are recreated in such intricate and loving detail that our senses are cheated into imagining that the steel from which they are crafted is as soft as a petal or as fragile as a powdered papillon. Carol adds to the realism with the deft stroke of a brush here and there.

Aged driftwood is reincarnated as the sea-battered support for a delicate orchid, whose priceless beauty would be fleeting and temporary but for the fact that it is fashioned in steel. An insignificant scrap of timber becomes a treasured work of art under Roger’s surprisingly heavy hands. Innovative furniture designs are another of his fortés and many a nuptial bed has started life in the smoke, steam and sparks of his workshop.

The missing finger on his left hand betrays a past which is rich with a cornucopia of life’s experiences. Roger has worked as a butcher, a builder, a carpenter and a commercial diver. He even spent some years as a gaucho cowboy in Argentina before finding his true vocation.

His art is not the only magic of which Roger is an exponent. He is also an accomplished and highly amusing magician and raconteur in his own right. He is truly a modern-day Renaissance Man and allowing yourself to feast upon the treasures in Roger’s collection is a luxury which no-one should miss.

Hugh Pryor