Paula Ortega

Paula Ortega is a material-led artist and maker whose practice centres on loofah, sustainability and material transformation. Working through sculpture, fibre and hand construction, she explores how everyday materials are made, used and valued, and how their status can shift through process and context. Loofah was familiar to her from childhood as an ordinary household material. For more than fifteen years, she has investigated its fibrous structure and irregularity, developing techniques specific to each project through a meticulous, process-led approach. A recent move to rural Dorset has brought the cultivated landscape increasingly into her work. The repeated structures of fields, crop rows, furrows and changing ground have become a way of thinking about land as both living system and resource, extending her longstanding interest in natural pattern, repetition and material value. Her background spans audiovisual communication, jewellery and cosmetic formulation. She previously founded Whitfords, a plastic- and petroleum-free skincare brand recognised for its loofah FibrePods packaging. She is now developing sculptural and wall-based work exploring land, material, surface and form.