Lesley Wengembo is a talented young artist from PNG who creates hyper-realistic portraiture, primarily depicting Indigenous people in traditional attire.
“As a contemporary Indigenous artist, I try to capture an essence of what is still alive today, expressed through their faces, before it disappears” – Lesley Wengembo
View a powerful exhibition featuring a series of landscape paintings based on artist Lesley Wengembo’s experiences of Papua New Guinea, traveling and living between village and city.
Inspired by European Romantic painters such as JMW Turner and contemporary artists, Lesley challenges our traditional understanding of landscape paintings by placing motifs of both past and present within the same space.
The works reflect Lesley’s personal experience and upbringing in Papua New Guinea and present an important dialogue for the 21st century – where past and tradition collide with the present and modern, where identity becomes ambiguous and complex.
Also known for his large hyper realist portraits of indigenous Papua New Guineans dressed in traditional attire, Lesley’s works bring a particular and vital understanding of symbolism in the Melanesian context – how the symbol shapes society and behaviour.
Image:‘Cross Road’, Oil painting on 120x90cm canvas, 2026
Make a day of it
Combine your visit with a look at Ngunuggula’s current exhibition, ‘Stories from a small country town’, curated by Djon Mundine OAM. It’s a multifaceted exhibition showcasing the work of acclaimed artists Archie Moore and Daniel Boyd. Through a dynamic investigation of portraiture, the exhibition interrogates the complexities of identity as expressed through social and physical action, trauma and its reverberations, as well as moments of play and joy.
About the artist
In 2019, Lesley travelled to Europe representing PNG as part of a Tourism and Cultural Expo and exhibited four works in the accompanying travelling exhibition. In 2020, Lesley travelled to France and exhibited two works in the Paris Art Symposium. In the same year he was a finalist in the 2020 Brisbane Portrait Prize with his portrait of Tim Fairfax, and in the 2023 Brisbane Portrait Prize with his portrait of NRL legend Petero Ciconiceva. In 2026 he painted a portrait of Namila Benson, host of the ABC Art Show, for submission to the Archibald Prize competition.
He was a Tim Fairfax Scholarship recipient and in 2021 graduated from National Art School with a Bachelor of Fine Art. He is currently studying a Masters at RMIT Melbourne.
