Ala Paredes is a visual artist, mother, performer, and teacher based in Sydney, Australia. Working mainly in watercolour, Ala examines her relationship with cultural tradition and inherited memory through portraiture. Her work explores themes of transplantation utilising familiar elements from religious iconography and her traditional Filipino upbringing.
In 2010, Ala received international publicity as a courtroom sketch artist for the high-profile Ampatuan Murder Trial in Manila. She is also an annual participant at the Chalk Pavement Art Festival and took home the prize for Best Novice that same year.
In 2013, Ala had her debut solo show, “Without Memory, Without Desire,” at Gaffa Gallery. Inspired by the radical spiritual disciplines of Japanese Buddhist monks with the aim of exploring repetition as a path to enlightenment, the show featured a collection of 365 self-portraits, each portrait created on each day of the year.
Ala is a resident artist at May Street Studios in Sydney.
You can read more about Ala and her art at alaparedes.wixsite.com/alaparedes-art. (Photo courtesy of Nicole Malvar.)
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Art Pairing
Slicing Tomatoes 