"My practice is primarily an investigation of materials. I am interested in everyday materials, especially those associated with the home. Many of my works reference women’s practices and traditional cultural identifiers. In the piece Valencia (CA,19) I employ methods of making passed down to me by my mother, in this case I use embroidery and beading as drawing. My explorations are intimately rooted in personal identity politics, I integrate personal items with items I believe speak to my cultural identity. In this case it is a bedsheet I used while living in California that has become the substrate for a painting. The title Valencia (CA,19) references the place in which the personal item was used for its intended purpose which I kept and chose to use as a substrate. The work is a mix of memory and place, like many of my other works. I adopt and transform workaday elements and processes. The work is a meditation on the different things that contribute to my personal culture, the many places i’ve lived and the traditions passed down to me. Valencia (CA,19) is both a meditation on how I am changed by the different cultures I encounter and how to preserve the traditions passed down to me." - Agnes Waruguru
