Pattern Recognition

Sara Flores b. 1950, Peru Follow +

Peruvian artist Sara Flores’ artistic practice is embodied within the ancestral intricate geometric act of kené. This geometric visual language, formed of maze-like patterns which the artist draws intuitively, is practiced by Flores’ people, the Shipibo-Konibo, who reside alongside the Ucayali River in the Peruvian Amazon. What might seem like abstract compositions are in fact codified knowledge, articulated through vegetal dyes derived from local plants and applied on to canvas with a sharpened stick. 

Flores is the first Indigenous artist to represent Peru at the Venice Biennale in the eleven years that the country has had a pavilion. Her participation represents another development, too. Back in 2019, artist Christian Bendayán exhibited work that grappled with the exoticisation and fetishisation of Amazonian culture in Peruvian contemporary art. By contrast, Flores is revered as a contemporary artist for a practice based in her own indigenous knowledge. She has exhibited at New York City’s Flag Art Foundation and the Museo de Arte de Lima, marking the first time a Shipibo-Konibo artist presented a solo show in Peru’s pre-eminent art museum (which also featured an indigenous Shipibo Nation flag designed by Flores). This June, White Cube in New York City will mount another solo show, and a documentary is currently slated for late 2026. Flores’ influence now extends into the fashion world: in 2024, she collaborated with Dior on two handbags for the label’s Dior Lady Art project.  

The artist is all too aware of this shift. While Flores’ work, and the wider practice of kené, has gained recognition outside Peru, it is only recently that her home country has begun to appreciate the significance of such a distinct cultural legacy. “There is a context of stigmatisation in being Indigenous,” Flores tells me, as we perch on a bench at the centre of the exhibition, surrounded by biennale crowds and more than one fan who attempts to interject. She is diminutive in stature and speaks Spanish in a soft, clear voice. Now in her seventies and recently called upon to travel the world with her art, she has a magisterial, quietly self-assured air. “At some points in my life, my daughters have rejected their identity,” she says, referring to her two children, Deysi and Pilar Ramírez, also artists. “But now I can say that we are all here together, because of our work, and who we are.”  

“There is a context of stigmatisation in being Indigenous”

Flores is accompanied in Venice by her daughters and three granddaughters, who are huddled in conversation. They are all ensuring that the materfamilias, the mother of the household, is as relaxed as she can be among the growing crowds. As we speak—via translator and exhibition co-curator Matteo Norzi—the artist gestures towards her family, grinning at various intervals. They are here not only as supporters, but collaborators.  

Kené holds wisdom that is passed through the female line but, rather than being taught in the traditional artistic sense, each individual learns by watching and doing so that they might develop their own hand organically. “It is like writing a letter,” Flores explains. “You first need to feel what you are going to say, then address the recipient, and then everything else will follow. Sometimes writing can take you to unexpected places—it is just like that. You begin with a vision that you cannot shake, then the hand follows.” For the works on show in the Arsenale, Flores’ daughters worked alongside her: she drew the formative outlines, and they contributed with secondary line work and colour application. 

The result is a group of huge textile works covered with small, intricate geometric patterns. Most are hung along the walls, hovering just in front of the raw brickwork of the building. Others are hung as sculptural pieces, descending from the ceiling like cube-shaped mosquito nets. The presentation is also accompanied by a new video that gives insight into Flores’ practice. 

For Flores, these pieces are also conceived in collaboration with the forces of the natural world. Born in 1950 in the native community of Tambomayo within the Peruvian Amazon, aged 14, she began an apprenticeship in kené with her mother. She has a memory of being a young girl and walking with her mother, who pressed the colourfully veined leaves of the ipobekené plant on to her eyelids so that she might better receive kené designs on a cosmic level. It was soon clear that Flores had the aptitude for the technical skills, known as menin, but was additionally in possession of the innate visionary gift of shinan.  

Shamanic spiritual rituals also play a role in the embodiment of this practice, particularly the ingestion of plant-based psychoactive substances such as kené wáste and ayahuasca. Through the sense of expanded consciousness that results, kené practitioners can unlock the patterns and mapping visible in the natural world, enabling them to see not only landscape, flora and fauna, but also mythological histories. “It is an invitation to surrender the ego—as you make the artwork, the artwork makes you as a person,” Norzi says.  

The practice has altered Flores’ physical being, too. Her body has been changed by the physicality of her work, which she makes by placing canvas material on a flat surface so that she can draw complex patterns. Years of leaning over her work have put an immense strain on the artist’s back and led to a curve in her spine. She also practices a form of corporeal geometry, using her fingers as a compass to trace curvilinear patterns on the fabric.  

As is tradition, Flores mixes her own pigments by first collecting plants and fruits such as the spiked, orange-red achiote and turmeric root for yellow. Black outlines made from ground tree bark form the framework for each piece, and the canvas is then washed to “set” the design before continuing.  

The results are astounding. Each motif extends and multiplies like a plant’s rhizome, reaching outwards with tendrils that seem to co-exist in a natural harmony. The fact that every line is conceived without preliminary drawings is almost unfathomable, particularly given the considerable scale of the works. The marriage of curves and angles is more akin to the patterns of a loom than a work of freehand.  

Whether hung like paintings or draped like textiles, the rhythmic nature of the patterns on Flores’ works invites an inquisitive, quiet contemplation. “There is a sense of geometric rules, but the intention is one of continuous innovation,” she says. “No pattern is ever repeated. Each piece represents the opportunity to explore infinite possibilities.” 

Within Shipibo-Konibo culture these works are not just considered beautiful, they are curative. In Amazonian Indigenous tradition, ill heath is caused by an imbalance of aesthetics, and by creating order that realigns sensory experience, one can be healed. When I ask how Flores hopes her works are received in Venice, she explains: “I was originally surprised that my works have the ability to connect with audiences with no prior knowledge of my culture.” She is excited to share how far her work has travelled and touched people with her extended family. “I am both happy to be here, and sad to be away from home,” she says. 

“There is a sense of geometric rules, but the intention is one of continuous innovation”

One final, essential tenet of kené is reciprocity. Beyond the collaborative nature of her work, Flores is an activist. She founded the first women’s co-operative among the Shipibo people in 1976, and the money she makes from her art funds environmental activism and Indigenous resistance, which is aggregated through the non-profit Shipibo Conibo Center (Norzi is executive director). The organisation is “motivated by the conviction that Indigenous identity does not belong to a romanticised ancient age, but rather to a technologically anchored and sustainable future” as a statement reads.  

Within a setting such as Venice, Flores continues to situate her practice within the broader political discourse of her country. As the Amazon rainforest remains under threat, so too does daily life within her community. Land is seized, polluted and otherwise destroyed, while cultural heritage is throttled. Flores’s work is not a relic from a historical past, but the code for a living, breathing future. “My experience in Peru is one of discrimination,” she says, “but through my work, I am offering an avenue for change.” —[O]

Sara Flores: De otros mundos (From other worlds) (until 22 November 2026) in the Peruvian Pavilion at the Venice Biennale.  

Main image: Materials of Sara Flores (2026) © Musuk Nolte, Courtesy The Shipibo-Conibo Center, NY.