Ones to Watch: Lesley Wengembo

Outstanding artists to have on your radar right now. Charlotte Middleton writes.

Raised in the Port Moresby suburb of Morata – home to one of the city’s largest squatter settlements – Lesley Wengembo first turned to art to escape his reality. Painting portraits of elders from his community, the Papua New Guinean artist’s practice developed into a means of honouring the culture and history of his people. In recent years, his work has focused on large-scale, hyper-realistic portraiture, typically featuring Indigenous Papua New Guineans dressed in their traditional attire.

“As a contemporary Indigenous artist, I try to capture an essence of what is still alive today and is expressed through their faces, before it dies out.”

Wengembo completed a Bachelor of Fine art at the National Art School in 2021. A two-time finalist (2020, 2023) in the prestigious Brisbane Portrait Prize, his work has also appeared in the Archibald Prize four times – and he’s just getting started. 

Above: Lesley Wengembo, Once A Warrior, 2022. Oil painting, 160 x 180cm. Courtesy: the artist.

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