Pamela Phatsimo Sunstrum (b.1980, Mochudi, Botswana) is a multidisciplinary artist who currently lives and works in The Hague, The Netherlands. Sunstrum’s work reflects her diverse experiences living in different parts of Africa, Southeast Asia, and North America. She holds an MFA from the Mount Royal School of Multidisciplinary Art at the Maryland Institute College of Art (2007), and a BA in International Studies with Highest Honors, concentrating on Transnational Cultures, from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill (2004).
Sunstrum’s practice encompasses a variety of mediums, including drawing, painting, installation, and animation, and focuses on exploring Black female identity within postcolonial and neocolonial discourses. Her work highlights the contributions of overlooked historical figures and engages with subjects like migration, ethnography, ecology, and quantum physics. The figures in her artwork, often depicted as her alter-egos, inhabit indefinable landscapes that evoke themes of cultural embeddedness within geology, reflecting the intersections of colonialism, capitalism, and global migration crises. Sunstrum’s work delves into journeys of disintegration, combining intimacy, violence, sensuality, and tenderness as part of the search for home and identity.
Text Source: Artist site
Image Source and Credit: Art Basel | Portrait of Pamela Phatsimo Sunstrum. Photography by Lotte van Uittert.
