Lenge 2023
My work Lenge was exhibited as part of A Soft Touch curated by Sophia Cai at Gallery 4a. Find out more about the show including a virtual gallery tour here https://4a.com.au/exhibitions/a-soft-touch and listen to curator Sophia Cai talk about the exhibition here https://4a.com.au/talks
A Soft Touch featured:
Soraya Abidin (@sorayaartis)
Anney Bounpraseuth (@anney_bounpraseuth)
Andrew Chan (@thecatwhoknits)
Paula do Prado (@cuervopuma)
Mehwish Iqbal (@mehwish.iq)
Kait James (@kait_james)
Yasbelle Kerkow (@yazzkailomai)
Haneen Mahmood Martin (@haneenmmartin)
Ema Shin (@ema.shin)
Siying Zhou (@siying_z)
A Soft Touch featured:
Soraya Abidin (@sorayaartis)
Anney Bounpraseuth (@anney_bounpraseuth)
Andrew Chan (@thecatwhoknits)
Paula do Prado (@cuervopuma)
Mehwish Iqbal (@mehwish.iq)
Kait James (@kait_james)
Yasbelle Kerkow (@yazzkailomai)
Haneen Mahmood Martin (@haneenmmartin)
Ema Shin (@ema.shin)
Siying Zhou (@siying_z)
Lenge 2023, installation view Photo by Rohan Venn for 4A Centre for Contemporary Asian Art, 2023
Paula do Prado, Lenge (2023)
mixed media and fibre, black paper bowl made by artist's mother, Laura do Prado Martirena
180 x 150 cm (it is 180 high x 150 wide approx)
Commissioned by 4A Centre for Contemporary Asian Art
mixed media and fibre, black paper bowl made by artist's mother, Laura do Prado Martirena
180 x 150 cm (it is 180 high x 150 wide approx)
Commissioned by 4A Centre for Contemporary Asian Art
Artist's statement
Lenge is a new beginning, re-woven from multiple endings. I have been working back into my archive and re-imagining works from ten or more years ago, mostly soft sculpture into new forms. These soft sculptures are now conversing with my weaving practice combining crochet and coiling, resulting in a malleability or softness of both time and material. This opens a space where past and present versions of myself as a person, an artist, a mother and woman can meet through my work. I am the embodiment of what you might call a recovering soft touch. A recovering over-giver, a migrant un-assimilating, unraveling politeness, not enoughness and people pleasing. I am changed after becoming a mother, as my son continues to achieve firsts and milestones, so do I. We are transforming, self initiating and navigating our respective rites of passage. Lenge is a love poem to softness birthing strength. Lenge is the first weaver, grandmother Anansi/spider. She is weaver of the rivers, wetlands and swamplands, thresholds to other dimensions, sites of creation, birth and rebirth. Here she invokes Lukanga Swamp in Zambia, a permanent wetland area formed in a near circular shape. A swamp that connects with various rivers and lagoons, expanding and contracting with seasonal overflows. She wears the chingelyengelye on her forehead as a sign of her connection to all the ancestralised grandmothers.
Lenge is a new beginning, re-woven from multiple endings. I have been working back into my archive and re-imagining works from ten or more years ago, mostly soft sculpture into new forms. These soft sculptures are now conversing with my weaving practice combining crochet and coiling, resulting in a malleability or softness of both time and material. This opens a space where past and present versions of myself as a person, an artist, a mother and woman can meet through my work. I am the embodiment of what you might call a recovering soft touch. A recovering over-giver, a migrant un-assimilating, unraveling politeness, not enoughness and people pleasing. I am changed after becoming a mother, as my son continues to achieve firsts and milestones, so do I. We are transforming, self initiating and navigating our respective rites of passage. Lenge is a love poem to softness birthing strength. Lenge is the first weaver, grandmother Anansi/spider. She is weaver of the rivers, wetlands and swamplands, thresholds to other dimensions, sites of creation, birth and rebirth. Here she invokes Lukanga Swamp in Zambia, a permanent wetland area formed in a near circular shape. A swamp that connects with various rivers and lagoons, expanding and contracting with seasonal overflows. She wears the chingelyengelye on her forehead as a sign of her connection to all the ancestralised grandmothers.
Lenge 2023 (detail) Photo by Rohan Venn for 4A Centre for Contemporary Asian Art, 2023
A Soft Touch installation view Photo by Rohan Venn for 4A Centre for Contemporary Asian Art, 2023
