Charlotte Sapene is a Venezuelan artist based in Mexico City whose work explores home, displacement and belonging through painting and found objects.
Kavanayén. Tú y yo. 2026. Found ceramic vessel, acrylic paint 12.5 × 15 × 7 cm 4.92 × 5.91 × 2.76 in
Kavanayén. Tú y yo.
(Becoming Tangible)
A person and a dog share one body: companionship, affection, and a home in each other.
Kavanayén. Guayoyo. 2026 Acrylic on found wood 27 × 18 x 27 in 68 × 45 x 68 cm
Kavanayén. Guayoyo.
(Becoming Tangible)
Transforms wood collected during walks along Iguana Beach, Nicaragua, into a piece that exists between a table and a lamp, evoking the everyday rituals of home.
Light, rest, and guayoyo—a traditional Venezuelan coffee—become symbols of memory, diaspora, and belonging.
Here, Kavanayén takes tangible form, illuminating the search for home through the objects that accompany daily life.
Kavanayén. Un trocito de mi árbol. 2026. Found object and acrylic made in Mexico. 15 × 16 × 18 in 37 × 16 × 18 cm
Kavanayén: Un trocito de mi árbol.
(Becoming Tangible)
A tree was cut. It couldn’t defend itself. This is what’s left.
A fragment carrying the violence we choose not to see.
Not debris—something that still matters. Still here. Still asking to be seen.
Kavanayén. Niña buena niña mala. 2026 Found tree trunk, acrylic 27 × 8 × 13 in 68 × 20 × 34 cm
Kavanayén: Niña buena niña mala.
(Becoming Tangible)
Kavanayén: Good Girl Bad Girl (Becoming Tangible) emerged from a large tree trunk found during a walk in Nicaragua, in the middle of an unusually absent rainy season.
The piece presents two opposing faces: one luminous and one darker, connected to different emotional memories between my mother and myself.
The title refers both to the idea of the “girl” and to the climate phenomenon El Niño, whose impact on climate and territory is becoming increasingly present within the Nicaraguan landscape.
Here, landscape stops being representation and becomes body, memory, and tangible matter shaped by emotional and environmental imbalance.
Kavanayén. Palma Mágica. 2026. Acrylic on palm. 7 × 18 x 2 in 45 × 18 x 5 cm
Kavanayén. Palma Mágica.
(Becoming Tangible)
Found on a walk along Iguana Beach, this curved palm frond became a self-standing monument to movement and belonging.
Its natural flexibility inspired a scene where Charli and I appear intertwined, suspended between memory, companionship, and the search for home.
Part of Kavanayén: Becoming Tangible, where discarded materials are transformed into carriers of personal history and diaspora.
Kavanayén. Territorio fertil. 2026. Acrylic on adobe. 7 × 7 x 5 in 17 × 17 x 13 cm
Kavanayén: Territorio fértil.
(Becoming Tangible)
It began with an abandoned adobe pot found during a walk along the beach in Nicaragua.
The piece reflects on the possibility of transforming what has been discarded—objects, memories, and even difficult childhoods—into something alive, fertile, and full of potential.
Through circular drawings painted on adobe, the recovered object ceases to be waste and becomes emotional territory, memory, and renewal.
Kavanayén: Pistola de agua y arcilla.
(Becoming Tangible)
It began with a fragment of wood found during a walk along Iguana Beach, Nicaragua.
The work emerges from the contrast between wood hardened by time and clay softened by water, reflecting the tension between survival and vulnerability, permanence and transformation.
Through two opposing narratives, it explores how memory, diaspora, and displacement shape childhood and transform the search for home into an ongoing journey.
Kavanayén. Pistola de agua y arcilla. 2026 Acrylic on wood and clay 13 × 7 x 2 in 33 × 17 x 5 cm
Kavanayén. Light my journey. 2026. Found object and acrylic made in Mexico. 18 × 30 × 25 in 46 × 12 × 10 cm
Kavanayén: Light my journey.
(Becoming Tangible)
A found lamp is not just an object—it is a small act of survival made visible.
Mother and daughter reach for each other without touching, holding distance, care, and longing at once.
Light becomes landscape: something that stays on, something that quietly shows the way home.
Kavanayén. Ponme tu flor. 2026 Gouache on ceramic 5.5 × 6 × 5 in 13 × 15 × 12 cm
Kavanayén: Ponme tu flor.
(Becoming Tangible)
Kavanayén expands beyond the pictorial surface, allowing landscape to take on physical presence.
Painted gestures migrate into objects that occupy space, activating a sensory encounter with memory and displacement.
Through this material shift, the imagined territory becomes something felt, inhabited, and real.
Kavanayén. Memory. 2026. Acrylic on ceramic jug. 15.7 × 7.5 in · 40 × 19 cm
Kavanayén: Memory.
(Becoming Tangible)
A vessel holding the memory of the women in my astral lineage and our shared search for home.