Paula do Prado is a contemporary artist working predominantly in textiles. Her work utilises traditional and non-traditional craft techniques to create hybridised fibre forms, altered books and photographic self portraits fused with fabric collage, stitch and beading. In recent years she has been experimenting with a process of crocheting with wired paper twine to create pliable coiled forms which are becoming larger-scale and increasingly sculptural.
Born in Montevideo, Uruguay, do Prado emigrated to Sydney, Australia in 1986 where she continues to live and work. She is of mixed Afro-Uruguayan and European ancestry. Her work explores her experience as a first generation migrant and as a non-indigenous brown woman navigating Australian culture and its ongoing and problematic colonial history. Although her work is highly personal and autobiographical, it oscillates between playful and tragic ambiguity to reference universal human preoccupations with belonging, cultural and gender identity.
Visually her works reference both feminine and masculine reproductive organs, animals (owls, octopi, jellyfish) and ceremonial African and Afro-Latin Carnival masks. Eyes are a recurring symbolic motif as windows to the soul, seeing and not seeing and simultaneously looking towards the past and future. The intensive hand made process gives the works a strong sense of time, materiality and tactility. The use of humble materials such as fabric, thread, paper, beads and found materials reference a ’making do’ aesthetic.
do Prado holds a Bachelor of Fine Arts (Textiles) with First Class Honours and a Master of Fine Arts from the University of New South Wales Art & Design. She has held several solo shows in Melbourne and Sydney and taken part in various group exhibitions in Australia and overseas. She is currently a committee member for AIRspace Projects, Marrickville and is a recipient of a 2018 Artist Studio Residency from Woollahra Municipal Council.
Born in Montevideo, Uruguay, do Prado emigrated to Sydney, Australia in 1986 where she continues to live and work. She is of mixed Afro-Uruguayan and European ancestry. Her work explores her experience as a first generation migrant and as a non-indigenous brown woman navigating Australian culture and its ongoing and problematic colonial history. Although her work is highly personal and autobiographical, it oscillates between playful and tragic ambiguity to reference universal human preoccupations with belonging, cultural and gender identity.
Visually her works reference both feminine and masculine reproductive organs, animals (owls, octopi, jellyfish) and ceremonial African and Afro-Latin Carnival masks. Eyes are a recurring symbolic motif as windows to the soul, seeing and not seeing and simultaneously looking towards the past and future. The intensive hand made process gives the works a strong sense of time, materiality and tactility. The use of humble materials such as fabric, thread, paper, beads and found materials reference a ’making do’ aesthetic.
do Prado holds a Bachelor of Fine Arts (Textiles) with First Class Honours and a Master of Fine Arts from the University of New South Wales Art & Design. She has held several solo shows in Melbourne and Sydney and taken part in various group exhibitions in Australia and overseas. She is currently a committee member for AIRspace Projects, Marrickville and is a recipient of a 2018 Artist Studio Residency from Woollahra Municipal Council.
