Palomo

‘Palomo’, once ridden by liberator Simón Bolívar, runs across the Venezuelan flag. Cut open from neck to back, transforming the emblem of freedom into a hollow vessel for oil. The body holds crude oil, a material that shaped Venezuela’s economy while fuelling corruption, political instability, and displacement.

Beneath the Orinoco Belt sleeps the world’s largest oil reserve, 303 Billion Barrels, 17% of Earths supply. This abundance elicited ‘The Resource Curse’.

The horse flees the burning Budare, an abstracted Venezuelan cooking plate, echoing a nation escaping dictatorship, gutted of its people, its soul.

Born far from family, culture, belonging. Yet it runs in my blood beyond distance, a weight shared by many Venezuelans, a country far from itself.

Francheska

LO LLEVO EN ME SANGRE I CARRY IT IN MY BLOOD TEXTS

Woollarah Gallery

Palomo

Meet the finalists of the 2026 Woollahra Small Sculpture Prize ahead of the exhibition at Woollahra Gallery at Redleaf this spring. One of our 49 finalists is Francheska Coenraads with her sculpture, Palomo. Referencing the legendary horse once ridden by Venezuelan liberator Simón Bolívar, Palomo reimagines a symbol of freedom against the complex history of Venezuela's oil wealth. Cut open from neck to back and transformed into a hollow vessel, the horse carries crude oil within its body, the resource that has shaped the nation's economy while contributing to corruption, political instability, and displacement. Set against an abstracted Budare, a Venezuelan cooking plate, the work becomes a powerful meditation on a country in crisis, and on the experience of being far from home. A Venezuelan-Dutch multidisciplinary artist based on Gadigal Land, Sydney, Coenraads works across sculpture, painting, felting, metalworking, and leatherworking. Her practice brings together natural and found materials to create talismanic objects that explore memory, place, protection, and the search for peace. Drawing on materials such as wool, hay and iron, her works become emotional and spiritual vessels, connecting personal histories with the landscapes and cultures that shape them.

Peter Vierod

Palomo

Palomo is Francheska’s deeply personal response to the plight of her native Venezuela. The work brings together two powerful symbols of Venezuelan independence: Palomo, the white horse ridden by liberator Simón Bolívar, and the white horse that runs freely across the country’s coat of arms. But here, the horse no longer runs free. Sliced open from neck to back, its body becomes a hollow vessel filled with crude oil. A symbol of freedom and possibility is transformed by the resource that promised Venezuela so much wealth, yet has become inseparable from the country’s political and economic collapse. Born in Venezuela and now living and working in Australia, Francheska has made Palomo from Australian Merino wool, steel, plastic, crude oil and resin. The combination brings something of both countries to a work about memory, identity, displacement and belonging. Francheska’s wider practice explores the relationship between thought, intention and our experience of reality. Her works often act as protective charms or meditative vessels — objects that invite reflection, shift attention away from negativity and speak to our instinctive search for purpose, peace and protection. For Francheska, exhibiting Palomo is especially significant. It gives her an opportunity to bring visibility to a country that remains an important part of who she is, through a work that is at once beautiful, wounded and unresolved.