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OPENING EVENT
SATURDAY 29 AUGUST, 2PM
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Landscape, for Lesley, is inseparable from memory, culture and belonging. The Papua New Guinea Sublime draws on lived experience of Papua New Guinea while engaging with the traditions of European Romantic painting, particularly the atmospheric and emotional qualities associated with J.M.W. Turner. The resulting works expand conventional ideas of landscape, where place is experienced as both physical and psychological, carrying histories that continue to shape the present.
Growing up in Papua New Guinea fostered an enduring relationship with land as a living repository of cultural knowledge, ancestral presence and personal memory. Relocation to Naarm (Melbourne) has further complicated that relationship, opening a space where distance sharpens recollection and familiar landscapes are reimagined through reflection rather than direct observation. The paintings emerge from that space between places, where memory, imagination and lived experience intersect.
Rather than offering a singular view of Papua New Guinea, the works suggest landscapes that are continually unfolding—sites where Indigenous knowledge, colonial histories and contemporary identities coexist. Romantic notions of the sublime are reconfigured through a Melanesian perspective, shifting attention away from awe inspired by nature alone towards the emotional and cultural weight that landscape carries.
Known for his large-scale hyperrealist portraits of Indigenous Papua New Guinean people in ceremonial regalia, Lesley has long explored questions of identity, symbolism and cultural continuity. The landscapes extend that enquiry beyond the figure, locating identity within the land itself. Together, the works reflect an ongoing practice grounded in the enduring connections between people, place and memory.
PUBLIC PROGRAM
Wednesday 16 September, 6pm : Papua New Guinea Independence
Join exhibiting artist Lesley Wengembo to celebrate Papua New Guinea Independence with an artist talk followed by traditional performances, music and food.
ABOUT THE ARTIST
Lesley Wengembo is a 29-year-old artist originally from Papua New Guinea. He completed a Bachelor of Fine Art at the National Art School in Sydney and is currently undertaking a Master of Fine Art at RMIT University. In recent years, his practice has focused on hyper-realistic portraiture, primarily depicting Indigenous people in traditional attire. He says, “As a contemporary Indigenous artist, I try to capture an essence of what is still alive today, expressed through their faces, before it disappears.”