Woman carrying a quenpo vessel

This sculptural vessel by the artist Dora Panduro Silvano, whose Shipibo name was Chonon Besho, depicts a woman carrying the vessel known as a “quenpo”. Panduro’s work forms part of the production of joni chomos; that is, pitchers with anthropomorphic faces or bodies, made by women of the Shipibo-Konibo people, who live in the Lower Ucayali region.
The outer surface of this type of pitcher is decorated with kené, geometric patterns in the form of interconnected mazes, representing the river and the constellations central to the community’s worldview. Here, Panduro employs a type of kené design learned from her mother and grandmother, to produce thin lines that evoke the liquid contained in the vessel.
By depicting a woman in an artistic practice common throughout the community, this pitcher may be intended as a collective self-portrait of Shipibo-Konibo women.