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Next Big Things: Pamela Phatsimo Sunstrum

Sunstrum’s dazzling work explores personal and family histories through the context of imaginary worlds and alternate realities

By Lucy Rees
A group of seven women in vintage attire posing together against a patterned background.
The Seven, 2020 Photo: COURTESY OF THE ARTIST AND GOODMAN GALLERY JOHANNESBURG, CAPE TOWN, LONDON

Mythology, illusionism, and fantasy are the driving forces in Pamela Phatsimo Sunstrum’s vibrantly colored, otherworldly works on paper. “I am interested in using mythological archetypes to reflect on personal or family history,” says the artist, who was born in Botswana, and currently lives and works in Johannesburg, South Africa, and Ontario. “I use that term loosely, in a primordial sense.” 

Person wearing glasses and a dark cardigan over a white shirt, standing in a room with blurry posters on the walls.
Pamela Phatsimo Sunstrum Photo: COURTESY OF THE ARTIST AND GOODMAN GALLERY JOHANNESBURG, CAPE TOWN, LONDON

Unique process: Sunstrum takes family pictures as well as 19th-century studio portraits of Black and brown characters as her starting point, before veiling and obscuring those original references with delicate layers of pencil and paint on wood panels. “What I love about drawing is that it’s understood to be provisional and temporary and because of that there is a lot of fluidity and grace to it,” she says. “I also like the relation to writing and how there is something idiosyncratic about it.”

Artwork of a woman in a blue dress with a bird perched on her arm, surrounded by a surreal landscape.
The Two II, 2020 Photo: COURTESY OF THE ARTIST AND GOODMAN GALLERY JOHANNESBURG, CAPE TOWN, LONDON
Person seated on checkered floor, holding a hawk, with abstract background and trees in warm colors.
The Two I, 2020

Inspirations: William Kentridge and Bessie Head, a celebrated writer from rural Botswana as well as the Romantic landscape painter Robert S. Duncanson.

Alter Ego: Phatsimo Sunstrum invented Asme as an alter ego while she was doing her Masters Degree. “I was creating these figures using found images and I was asking a lot of them. I was feeling that I needed to put myself on the line more. I didn’t want it to seem autobiographical though, so Asme provided a bit of protection. I wanted a figure or character that could be many different people at once.” 

Two distinguished men with mustaches, colorful floral attire, and canes, stand with a ship's outline and leaves in the background.
Grandpères, 2020 Photo: COURTESY OF THE ARTIST AND GOODMAN GALLERY JOHANNESBURG, CAPE TOWN, LONDON

Up next: Following a solo show at Goodman Gallery in London, Sunstrum will present work at the gallery’s pop-up exhibition in New York.

A group of seven people in vintage attire, seated and standing, with a detailed patterned backdrop and checkered floor.
The Seven, 2020 Photo: COURTESY OF THE ARTIST AND GOODMAN GALLERY JOHANNESBURG, CAPE TOWN, LONDON

“Pamela’s multidisciplinary work is inspired by literature, but it is infused with science as she creates alter egos and a parallel universe to reflect on aspects of modern society as well as her own life.”

Jorge M. Pérez, collector and philanthropist