by Chieloka Anadu
For Kennyhoopss, born Kenoly Mbele Leprince, the loom is not simply a tool, it is a site of inheritance. A London-based textile designer of Congolese heritage, Kennyhoopss works with sustainable and recycled materials to explore identity through the intertwined languages of colour, pattern, and texture, treating each woven surface as a record of where she comes from and who she is becoming.
Weaving sits at the centre of her practice, and it is here that her cultural lineage becomes most visible. Drawing on African textile traditions such as Kuba cloth and Mbuti design, Kennyhoopss does not simply reference these forms, she carries them forward, translating ancestral pattern-making into a contemporary visual vocabulary shaped by her London surroundings. The result is work that exists in conversation with both continents at once, neither fully historical nor fully new, but something continuously woven between the two.
Her commitment to sustainability is inseparable from her artistic intention. By working with recycled and natural materials, Kennyhoopss treats resourcefulness itself as part of the storytelling—an echo of the ingenuity embedded in the traditions she draws from, where materials were never wasted but transformed. Across textiles, drawing, and mixed media, her hands-on process resists mass production in favour of the intentional and the tactile, each piece bearing the visible trace of her touch.
Beyond the studio, Kennyhoopss extends her practice into schools and community spaces, leading workshops that share skill and open up creative possibility through making. For her, weaving is not a private pursuit but a transferable language—one that builds confidence in others as readily as it builds meaning in her own work.
Her participation in exhibitions such as Luminous Art Exhibition at Anadu Art Gallery affirms what her practice has long suggested: that textile art, when rooted in heritage and handled with intention, can hold as much conceptual weight as any painting or sculpture. Kennyhoopss’s work is a reminder that identity is something we weave, thread by thread, out of the materials – and traditions – we are given.
Follow Kennyhoopss’ story on Instagram: @kennyhoopss
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