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  "description": "The artist combines traditional Malaysian weaving practices and secondhand detritus to comment on gender roles and the meaning of wealth.",
  "path": "/anne-samat-avatars-ulrich-museum-of-art/",
  "publishedAt": "2026-02-28T18:27:49.000Z",
  "site": "https://www.shoutwichita.com",
  "tags": [
    "_trompe l’oeil_",
    "Ulrich's website",
    "the artist's gallery.",
    "Derby man has the kind of voice that turns heads — and chairs",
    "Socializing while sober: how some Wichitans are cultivating alcohol-free communities",
    "Bygone Friends University museum housed curious collections",
    "**Click here to support our work with a tax-deductible donation**",
    "Yes! I want to support the SHOUT"
  ],
  "textContent": "On the coldest day (so far) of 2026, I made a trip to see the exhibition “Avatars” __ by Anne Samat at the Ulrich Museum of Art, on display through May 30. Maybe the weather that day kept the crowds at bay, but I felt grateful for the solitude and the chance to sit in the gallery uninterrupted, looking and then looking again at the material richness of this body of work.\n\nSamat is a Malaysian artist whose work transforms everyday objects into imaginative and decorative delights. She draws on specific weaving techniques indigenous to Malaysia — including _songket_ (a type of brocade with metallic threads, which originated in Kuala Lumpur), and _pua kumbu_ (a form of backstrap loom weaving, from Sarawak, East Malaysia). Samat integrates these processes with modern-day found materials, many of them sourced from thrift stores. The longer I sat in the gallery, the more the disparate materials came into focus: items such as brooms, costume masks, kitchen utensils, rakes, and toy swords, each woven together and recontextualized such that their original form seemed initially unrecognizable.\n\nWorks by Anne Samat, from left: “Kalambi 3 (A),” 2024; table loom woven piece with hand painted rattan sticks, recycled and upcycled jeans/denim, wooden horse harness, numerous types of yarn, washers, wooden beads, and metal and plastic ornaments; “Kalambi 3 (C),” 2024, table loom woven piece with hand painted rattan sticks, recycled and upcycled jeans/denim, wooden horse harness, numerous types of yarn, washers, wooden beads, and metal and plastic ornaments. __Photos by Rachel Epp Buller for The SHOUT.__\n\nSamat’s title of “Avatar” primed me to expect figurative work. Historically, an avatar refers to the earthly manifestation of a deity; in more recent times, an avatar also signifies a stand-in for the self in a digital or video-game setting. Of the seven pieces in the installation, however, only four clearly read as humanoid representations. Those sculpturally assembled figures emerge from the walls with their many arms, long braided tresses, or layered necklaces extending toward the viewer.\n\n## Our free email newsletter is like having a friend who __always__ knows what's happening\n\nGet the scoop on Wichita’s arts & culture scene: events, news, artist opportunities, and more. Free, weekly & worth your while.\n\nSubscribe\n\nEmail sent! Check your inbox to complete your signup.\n\nNo spam. Unsubscribe anytime.\n\nA detail view of Anne Samat’s “Kalambi 3 (B),” 2024; table loom woven piece with hand painted rattan sticks, recycled and upcycled jeans/denim, wooden horse harness, numerous types of yarn, washers, wooden beads, and metal and plastic ornaments. __Photo by Rachel Epp Buller for The SHOUT.__\n\nAlongside them, three non-figurative pieces, woven on table looms and hung from wooden horse harnesses, hang flat like tapestries against the walls. While all seven works showcase a visual feast of mixed-media assemblage, the stark difference between the two types of artworks prompted me to reconsider my assumption about the title’s meaning. Are the four figurative works the avatars and the other three pieces accompanying decoration? Or are all seven meant to be avatars? Are the non-figurative pieces perhaps intended as cultural representations of the self through region-specific processes and materials?\n\nAnne Samat, “No Place for Beginners or Sensitive Heart #2,” 2021; rattan sticks, kitchen and garden utensils, beads, ceramic, metal and plastic ornaments, and handwoven tapestry. __Photo by Rachel Epp Buller for The SHOUT.__\n\nThe two assemblages that repeatedly drew and sustained my attention are figures from the same series: “No Place for Beginners or Sensitive Heart #2” __ and “No Place for Beginners or Sensitive Heart #3.” Both pieces dominate the space, their just-under-life-sized figures made prominent by elaborate headdresses and a shiny metallic décor of beads, ornaments, and plastic toys that rise eight feet up the wall. Samat compellingly renders the faces from unexpected materials.\n\nAnne Samat, “No Place for Beginners or Sensitive Heart #3,” 2021; rattan sticks, kitchen and garden utensils, beads, ceramic, metal and plastic ornaments, and handwoven tapestry. __Photo by Rachel Epp Buller for The SHOUT.__\n\nIn “#2,” she uses a round metal sieve to evoke the head and an eye mask to stand in for facial features, with thread and beads dangling from the bottom. I read both figures as royalty of a sort—ornately adorned figures backed by even more embellished decoration. I imagined them in a procession, their oversized and over-the-top costuming facilitated by a host of unseen attendants.\n\nDetail views from oAnne Samat’s \"No Place for Beginners or Sensitive Heart\" series. __Courtesy photo by Madison Bowron for the Ulrich Museum of Art.__\n\nAs I continued to gaze at them, however, I realized that in each one, their plumages are in fact wonderfully tactile broom heads. The materials are in disguise, masquerading as something other than they are and prompting me to question what I see. The quotidian materials suddenly seemed at odds with the surface implication of wealth and status.\n\nAnne Samat, detail of “No Place for Beginners or Sensitive Heart #3.\" __Photo by Rachel Epp Buller for The SHOUT.__\n\nEven once I recognized them for what they are, many of the found objects woven into the works had a _trompe l’oeil_ quality, threatening to fool my eye. Are they metal or plastic? It is not always easy to tell. Rakes, for instance, exist in both plastic and metal forms. The toy swords are likely plastic but coated with metallic paint to give a moderate illusion of gilded metal handles. Samat’s shiny objects and varied textures beckon for handling, and when I noticed a sword handle bent out of place, I wondered if some viewer might have been unable to resist.\n\nAnne Samat, “Kalambi 3 (B)” __,__ 2024; table loom woven piece with hand painted rattan sticks, recycled and upcycled jeans/denim, wooden horse harness, numerous types of yarn, washers, wooden beads, and metal and plastic ornaments. __Photo by Rachel Epp Buller for The SHOUT.__\n\nSamat’s choice of materials invites a gendered reading as well. The wall text suggests that Samat redefines gender roles by upending the expectations of Malaysian weaving, taking a traditionally female craft and infusing it with markers of masculinity. \"Kalambi 3 (B),\" a tapestry more than 6 feet in height, showcases yellow and orange yarn woven around rattan sticks with hanging adornments of wooden beads. While she often disguises her materials, in \"Kalambi 3 (B)\" Samat prominently threads men’s leather belts through the piece, undisguised and apparent.\n\nAnne Samat, “Never Walk In Anyone’s Shadow 2 (C),” 2024; rattan sticks, kitchen and garden utensils, beads, ceramic, metal and plastic ornaments, handwoven tapestry. __Photo by Rachel Epp Buller for The SHOUT.__\n\nIn all four of the figurative avatars, Samat transforms the masculinist associations of weaponry into feminine decoration. She assembles toy swords and scabbards to make the many-armed figures contained within \"Never Walk in Anyone’s Shadow 2(C)\" and \"No Place for Beginners.\" She weaves toy swords and daggers through the heads of plastic rakes to create elaborate headdresses for each of the figures.\n\nAnne Samat, “Mysterious Beauty 3 (Sarawak Series),” 2024; cotton and synthetic yarn, hand painted rattan sticks, garden rakes, belts, stainless steel washers, pvc chain, denim, wooden beads, and plastic and metal ornaments. __Photo by Rachel Epp Buller for The SHOUT.__\n\nIn \"Mysterious Beauty 3 (Sarawak Series),\" Samat creates a smaller, more modest crown from five toy daggers woven into a single plastic rake head. Here she adds a series of metallic chains, hanging down to frame the figure’s would-be face. Samat shifts the association of chains from masculine to feminine and from menacing to ornamental. The chains are clearly plastic, not metal, and their placement evokes pendilia — the gold chains and filigree that dangle from imperial crowns. Samat’s work as a transgender activist may also inform this questioning of gender identities, whether through material processes, cultural expectations, or costumed presentation.\n\nA detail view of Anne Samat’s “Mysterious Beauty 3 (Sarawak Series),” 2024; cotton and synthetic yarn, hand painted rattan sticks, garden rakes, belts, stainless steel washers, PVC chain, denim, wooden beads, and plastic and metal ornaments. __Courtesy photo by Madison Bowron for the Ulrich Museum of Art.__\n\nAt the same time, Samat’s excessive ornamentation hints at a critique of excess more generally. Her works call to my mind a lineage of past and present rulers for whom excess is a visualization of power. And, yet, her use of cheap materials, based on the glut of mass-produced plastic goods available in our world today, troubles this evocation of wealth. Samat invites us to relish the surface splendor, if only for a moment, before we tune into the artifice at play.\n\nInstallation views of Anne Samat’s exhibition “Avatar” at the Ulrich Museum of Art. __Photos by Rachel Epp Buller for The SHOUT.__\n\n## The Details\n\n**\"Anne Samat: Avatars\"**\nJanuary 22-May 30, 2026 at the Ulrich Museum of Art on the Wichita State campus, 1845 N. Fairmount St. in Wichita\n\nThe exhibition is on the second floor. Admission is free, and the facility is accessible to people with physical disabilities.\n\nThe Ulrich Museum is open 11 a.m.-5 p.m. Tuesday through Saturday with extended hours until 8 p.m. Thursdays.\n\nLearn more on the Ulrich's website and the artist's gallery.\n\n* * *\n\n_**Rachel Epp Buller** is an artist and art historian whose current research explores listening as an artistic method. She is a two-time Fulbright Scholar, a certified practitioner in deep listening, and a professor of visual arts and design at Bethel College. _\n\n****Popular Reads****\n❋ Derby man has the kind of voice that turns heads — and chairs\n❋ Socializing while sober: how some Wichitans are cultivating alcohol-free communities\n❋ [As a small creative business closes, the owner mourns\n](https://www.shoutwichita.com/the-sewing-center/)❋ [Painting through it: Autumn Noire on 20 years of making art\n](https://www.shoutwichita.com/autumn-noire/)❋ [How a guy from Wichita resurrected 'Dawn of the Dead'\n](https://www.shoutwichita.com/leif-jonker-dawn-of-the-dead/)❋ Bygone Friends University museum housed curious collections\n\n## Support Kansas arts writing\n\nThe SHOUT is a Wichita-based independent newsroom focused on artists living and working in Kansas. We're partly supported by the generosity of our readers, and every dollar we receive goes directly into the pocket of a contributing writer, editor, or photographer. **Click here to support our work with a tax-deductible donation****.**\n\nYes! I want to support the SHOUT\n\nf",
  "title": "Material richness: 'Anne Samat: Avatars' at the Ulrich Museum of Art",
  "updatedAt": "2026-02-28T18:27:50.038Z"
}