Packed with references to literature, film, and even physics, they invite viewers to ponder the elusive nature of identity

Ijeoma Ndukwe

Discover the vivid visual journeys of artist Pamela Phatsimo Sunstrum

‘I love the provisional nature of drawing: that it’s allowed to be rough, that it’s allowed to be see-through and gestural,’ says artist Pamela Phatsimo Sunstrum. Her commitment to drawing – extending beyond pencil to watercolor, acrylic, and gouache – is at the very core of her practice. 

Moving between painting, installation, and animation, Sunstrum uses drawing as an anchor to create a form of collage – blending overlapping figures, objects, and spaces with landscape to build layers of meaning. ‘I want to find as many different points as possible from which to direct the gaze,’ she says.

Her painting Sinner Get Ready (2022) is a striking example of how the Botswana-born artist embeds multiple perspectives within a single frame. A languid figure is transposed across landscapes evoking places Sunstrum lived as a child, including Canada, Malawi, Sri Lanka, and Sudan. The body in the foreground sprawls across black-and-white checked flooring, while outlines of a palm-lined coast and a mountain range lie in the distance. Rendered in a sumptuous oil wash, the painting provides a vivid journey through time and space where classical drawing and ethnographic sketch collide.

Visual narratives exploring history, mythology, genealogy, geography, and ethnography define Sunstrum’s richly coded paintings. A still from the animation The Star + The Moon (2011), selected for her upcoming show ‘The Pavilion’ at the London Mithraeum Bloomberg SPACE, illustrates her frequent use of an alter ego as a conduit to explore selfhood and the complexity of Black female identity. A lone, seated figure – an adventurer – is inserted into an otherworldly, panoramic landscape beneath a dark, geometric-etched sky.

On a call from The Hague in the Netherlands, where Sunstrum is currently based, she explains how her academic background informs her approach, a layering of references sourced from archive, film, television, and literature. ‘The image comes to my mind first and then I need to support that image with as much visual research as possible. To me, it’s really interesting and important that there’s a lot of citation in my work, and that there are very specific references,’ Sunstrum says.

One of Sunstrum’s first animations, The Star + The Moon draws on American theoretical physicist Sylvester James Gates’s research into supersymmetry, which proposes that all particles have partners. The work’s mirrored vista attempts to find a visual language for the speculative theory. ‘It’s not necessary that every viewer knows every single reference but, for me, it stands as something real and authentic,’ explains the artist. ‘I’ve always been looking for ways of carrying the history, all of the touches, moves, and erasures. I’m searching for a language that helps me carry all of that.’ 
<hr>
Pamela Phatsimo Sunstrum is represented by <a href="https://www.artbasel.com/catalog/gallery/1143/Goodman-Gallery?lang=en">Goodman Gallery</a>
(Cape Town, Johannesburg, and London) and <a href="https://www.artbasel.com/catalog/gallery/1186/Galerie-Lelong-Co">Galerie Lelong & Co.</a> (New York).&nbsp;
‘The Pavilion’ runs from July 27, 2023 to January 13, 2024 at London Mithraeum
Bloomberg SPACE. 
Ijeoma Ndukwe is a multimedia journalist based in London. 
Published on July 14, 2023.
Caption for full-bleed images, from top to bottom: 1. Pamela Phatsimo Sunstrum, To The Moon (film still), 2014. Courtesy of the artist, Galerie LeLong & Co., and Goodman Gallery. 2.&nbsp;Pamela Phatsimo&nbsp;Sunstrum,&nbsp;POLYHEDRA&nbsp;(film still, detail), 2016.&nbsp;Courtesy of the artist,&nbsp;Galerie LeLong & Co., and&nbsp;Goodman Gallery.&nbsp;3.&nbsp;Pamela Phatsimo Sunstrum,&nbsp;Spin (film still), 2013.&nbsp;Courtesy of the artist, Galerie LeLong & Co., and Goodman Gallery.

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Packed with references to literature, film, and even physics, they invite viewers to ponder the elusive nature of identity 

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Packed with references to literature, film, and even physics, they invite viewers to ponder the elusive nature of identity

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