Artwork: Charlene Komuntale, Aqua Dresses, 2022
Workshop
When: Tuesday, February 14, 1-3pm
Where: The Exhibition Space, The Mill, 154 Angas St, Kaurna Yarta
Cost: $25 (+ booking fee), all materials included
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The Mill has two entrances, the main entrance on the corner of Angas and Gunson Street and an accessible entrance further down Angas Street.
Both doors are locked from the outside, there is a doorbell on the main door that will alert The Mill team. They will meet you at the accessible entrance to welcome you into the building.
The Mill has concrete flooring throughout with no internal steps and a disability toilet on site.
Read more in-depth information on our accessibility web page.
Join Ugandan artist Charlene Komuntale for a workshop exploring her portraiture practice. Charlene Komuntale is a digital artist and illustrator based in Kampala, Uganda. She is the current LK Artist in Residence, she will be spending 6 weeks living in Adelaide and working from a studio at The Mill supported by Sanaa. Charlene uses digital mediums to create stunning portraits of Black African women that centre empowerment, liberation and confidence.
What to expect:
Participants will hear from Charlene about her digital and conceptual process, and how she creates her work. The group will then work with her to develop their own symbolic self-portrait in Charlene's style. Portraits will be created using paper, collage, texta and acrylic paint and can be taken home on the day.
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Charlene Komuntale is a digital artist and illustrator based in Kampala, Uganda. She holds a BA in Animation from Limkokwing University, Malaysia. In her recent series “Not Fragile”, Komuntale portrays women - mostly black African women.
The subject matter is personal yet presented in a relatable way as inspiration is drawn from her own experiences but also informed by the experiences of other women around her.
The heads of the women she portrays are covered by different elements, which create poetic yet striking narratives around a broadly relatable figure. At first sight, the works evoke a dreamy, peaceful, and quiet atmosphere, whereas at a closer look powerful, empowering and unapologetic messages come to the fore. Dominant, male-centered perspectives on women’s roles and supposedly nature-given capabilities and constraints attached to female bodies are being evaluated and re-examined. The juxtaposition of different elements creates an interesting asymmetry between awareness of self and the (male-centered) gaze of others. Intimacy, tenderness, vulnerability, and female beauty do not suggest fragility. Instead, it is related to strength and unapologetic confidence. Komuntale’s digital paintings deconstruct patriarchal narratives as shaped by culture, religion, and politics and provide a ground for inquiry and interrogation, and for visions of different futures.
Her compositional choices create a space at the edges of reality – moments frozen in time and filled with surreal elements and metaphorical and symbolical references.
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