In a Centuries-Old Building in The Hague, Artist Pamela Phatsimo Sunstrum Conjures Mystical Visions—With a Little Help From Her Alter Ego
The Botswana-born artist currently has works on view at London Mithraeum and Liverpool Biennial.
Pamela Phatsimo Sunstrum (b. 1980) conjures up her mythical and mystical world to the sound of centuries-old church bells. The Botswana-born artist, who is celebrated for her fantastical paintings, drawings, and vivid animations, keeps a studio situated in a 15th-century building in The Hague. The history-rich building was once home to the Spanish embassy in the Netherlands and sits beside a 600-year-old church whose carillon of bells peal melodiously throughout the day.
In this anachronistic ambiance, Sunstrum spends her days working across media. In recent months, she’s been putting the finishing touches on a new exhibition at the Bloomberg SPACE at London Mithraeum (through January 13, 2024), the artist’s first solo public institutional show in the U.K. For the exhibition, which opened at the end of July, she constructed The Pavilion, an intricate wooden structure inspired by Victorian cabinets of curiosity where the artist animations are displayed, and, in other spaces, where visitors are encouraged to contemplate histories of mythology, cosmology, and scientific theories that inform her works. Sunstrum’s creations often engage the past and present in complex dialogues, as the artist pulls from family portraits as well as found imagery of Black and brown people. In creating her works, the artist often conjures Asme, an alter ego the artist began using in graduate school to play the central protagonist of her animations.
Recently, Sunstum’s works have been garnering increased attention. In addition to the show in London, her works are currently on view in Liverpool Biennial, and she will debut a yet-to-be-announced institutional installation in the fall of 2024. With so much coming together, we caught up with the artist at her studio, where she talked about why she loves erasers, the advice of Twyla Tharp, and her daily dives into the sea.