Pamela Phatsimo Sunstrum | In the shadow of the knife: Studies for It Will End in Tears
Go behind the scenes of ‘It Will End In Tears’ by viewing 60 storyboard drawings at Goodman Gallery London through October, alongside paintings featured at the Barbican. Pamela Phatsimo Sunstrum, known for her transformative world-building, presents a unique collection inspired by her installation at The Barbican’s Curve Gallery. These intricate works provide a glimpse into the artistic process behind Sunstrum’s first major solo exhibition at a UK institution.
Rooted in her fascination with liminality, these drawings and paintings highlight Sunstrum’s ability to blur the boundaries between reality and fiction, participation and spectatorship.
Pamela Phatsimo Sunstrum, known for her transformative world-building, presents a distinctive collection inspired by her installation at The Barbican’s Curve Gallery. These works provide insight into her first major solo exhibition at a UK institution.
Artworks
About
Pamela Phatsimo Sunstrum
Pamela Phatsimo Sunstrum’s (b. 1980, Mochudi, Botswana) work alludes to mythology, geology and theories on the nature of the universe. Her work includes imagery that reflects the diverse genealogies of her experience living in different parts of Africa, Southeast Asia, and the U.S. as well as ongoing research in ethnography, ecology, and quantum physics. The artist’s boundary-crossing practice centres Black female identity in the discourse of postcolonialism and neocolonialism, highlighting the contributions of overlooked historical figures while emphasising modes of knowledge and communication beyond the status quo.
In 2024, a major new solo exhibition opened at KM21 Den Haag, including a new large scale diptych painting within an installation that included items from the museum’s furniture collection. Sunstrum also presented her first solo exhibition titled ‘It Will End in Tears’, at a major UK institution, the Barbican Centre’s The Curve. Sunstrum took her life-size wood grain panoramas round the bend of the gallery, building a narrativised sequence with elements of film noir, crime fiction and pure drama.
Recent solo exhibitions include: It Will End In Tears, Barbican London, UK (2024); You’ll be sorry, Goodman Gallery, Johannesburg, South Africa (2023), The Pavillion, London Mithraeum, Bloomberg SPACE, London (2023); All my seven faces, Contemporary Art Center, Cincinnati (2019); Michaelis School for the Arts at the University of Cape Town (2018); Interlochen Centre for the Arts, Interlochen (2016).
Group exhibitions and biennales include: Born in Flames: Feminist Futures, The Bronx Museum of the Arts NY, USA (2021); WITNESS: Afro Perspectives from the Jorge M. Pérez Collection, El Espacio 23, Miami, USA (2020).
Collections include: Fries Museum, Leeuwarden, Hessel Museum at Bard College, New York, A4 Arts Foundation, Cape Town; The Fitzwilliam Museum, Cambridge; University of Cape Town, Cape Town; Deutsche Bank Collection, Frankfurt; El Espacio 23, Miami; FRAC des Pays de la Loire Contemporary Collection, Carquefou; University of South Africa (UNISA) Art Collection.
Sunstrum lives and works in The Hague, Netherlands.
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