Panda Landa "Altar I" Hand-Dyed Fabric, Concentric Textile Wall Art in Lilac and Raspberry, California Desert Art, Original 20 X 26 Inches, 2025

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In this textile wall art of hand-dyed fabric by California desert artist Panda Landa, concentric bands of cloth step inward … Read more In this textile wall art of hand-dyed fabric by California desert artist Panda Landa, concentric bands of cloth step inward to a small cream square topped by a coral lid: pale pink and cream at the top, then lilac, raspberry, dusty mauve and blush rings below. A close photograph shows a raised, lace-like pattern in the cream cloth, a small sign of the second-hand fabric's former life. Panda Landa's ALTAR pieces use centered, layered bands, and this one is finely modulated from pale to deep, with the stitched seams visible at every ring. The dye has made each band slightly different in temperature, so the whole reads as a soft pink gradient seen through frosted glass.

A mid-size upright for above a sofa, a bed or a dresser. The lilac, raspberry and blush bands suit white and gray rooms, light oak and velvet, and add a refined, feminine accent to a living room, a nursery or a bedroom. Beside a window, the daylight shows the texture in the cloths. It also works as a quiet anchor in an entry or a hallway.

Hand-dyed fabric on stretcher bars, 20 x 26 x 0.75 in (50.8 x 66.0 x 1.9 cm). Unframed.

Panda Landa builds each piece from second-hand fabric that is dyed by hand, then cut and sewn together by instinct and improvisation, letting the composition develop naturally. Seams join the cloths into bands, arches, triangles and spirals, and the dye is left to pool and bloom, so the mottling in each cloth stays part of the surface. The sewn panel is stretched over wooden stretcher bars about three quarters of an inch deep and is unframed.

Panda Landa (b. 1982) is a queer, non-binary visual artist and filmmaker raised in the Nevada desert and now based in Joshua Tree, California. Self-taught, they work through instinct and improvisation, making mixed-media textile pieces from second-hand fabrics that are dyed by hand, stitched and stretched over frames. Sustainability is central to the practice, and every cloth arrives with its own history.

Their ongoing series, including PORTAL, ALTAR, ECLIPSE, VESSEL and RITUAL, touch on queerness, identity, ancestral narrative, healing and transformation, and more recent beaded panels carry short, tender phrases in color. Landa made the 2022 film In the Middle of Everywhere and has offered a workshop on giving new life to clothes at the Joshua Tree Music Festival. See less