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)
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
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
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.