Sherry Quiambao, 'No-one knew the shape of me'
36 x 120 cm
Pigment Print on Paper
Edition 2/5 + 1AP
$1200
With Ira Fai. This work reflects on the tension between utility and invisibility, belonging and displacement. Wearing a ubiquitous woven plastic bag - an object associated with burden, migration, and the domestic - Ira moves along the shoreline like a forgotten item caught between tides. Her gestures are deliberate, restrained, evoking something both absurd and human. The female body becomes both landscape and litter: a presence shaped by movement, yet obscured by the very materials meant to carry and contain.
The development of this work was supported by the Perth Institute of Contemporary Arts’ International Studio Exchange Program.
Sherry Quiambao is an Australian multidisciplinary artist of Filipina heritage, based in Perth/Boorloo, Western Australia. Working across photography, video, sculpture, and installation, her practice explores memory, cultural heritage, and the ways material culture and everyday objects shape belonging and selfimage.
Over the past 15 years, Sherry has developed a body of work that moves between intimate gesture and large-scale, site-responsive installation. Her recent projects - Veiled in a Golden Hue (Goolugatup Heathcote, 2024), Affluence Breathes a Heavy Air (Joondalup Invitation Art Prize, 2025), and Soft Ceremony (2025) - investigate themes of migration, resilience, and consumerism through assemblage, moving image, and immersive installation.
Sherry’s international trajectory began early, when she was invited to exhibit at the Embassy of Australia in Washington DC as part of Lie of the Land (2012). She has since undertaken residencies and projects in the Philippines and Indonesia. In 2025 she participated in the PICA BREEZE residency in Makassar, Sulawesi (supported by PICA, MAREGE Institute, Rumata’ Artspace, and Universitas Negeri Makassar), where she developed new work exploring water as a vessel of memory and exchange.
Her work has been exhibited across Australia, the Philippines, and in the United States, with outcomes including a Perth Festival exhibition - de-centre re-centre (2025) LWAG x PCP, and recognition such as the National Photographic Portrait Prize (finalist & First Time Finalist Award Winner, 2025). Sherry holds a Bachelor of Arts in Sculpture from Curtin University an Associate Degree of Visual Art from Edith Cowan University, and postgraduate studies in curation and education.
The development of this work was supported by the Perth Institute of Contemporary Arts’ International Studio Exchange Program.