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THE HOUSE IN MY HEAD HAS MANY STORIES

18.08 - 18.09.2021

A solo exhibition by Sitaara Stodel

Sitaara Stodel is an artist who uses her creative practice to explore and unpack the experiences of moving homes regularly during her formative years. Throughout her many moves, from childhood to adult life, her idea around “home” has shifted and evolved many times. Her experience of the home as a transitory space has called into question the very nature of this concept. The artist, having experienced over and over the event of being removed, or removing herself, from spaces which are usually demarcated as a home, Stodel has had to grapple with the abstract concept of a home-space and the lived reality of one.

Growing up, the artist was heavily influenced by representations of homes and ideals of family perpetuated by the media. Indeed, Stodel often has dreams where the space of home and family feature prominently. In her adult life, the artist has had to dismantle her complex emotions towards these two fundamental, and often idealised, social constructs. The realization that there is no perfect home, or perfect family to inhabit it, inspires Stodel to use the pictorial plane to deconstruct the representation of family and home, as well as her own memories, through the use of discarded family photographs. Using anonymous images created by people she has never met, the artist oscillates between abandoning and hoarding tableaus of conventional family life; floral arrangements, wedding guests lined up on the steps of an unknown church, beloved pets, birthdays, first cars, day trips and family holidays, manicured gardens with pristine blue swimming pools, empty bottles and glasses next to half-eaten plates of food from a festive family gathering, empty deck chairs on a patio, and moments whose significance is now lost. These precious forgotten memories captured by other families are imbued with new life and meaning through the medium of collage.

The very playful and interchangeable nature of this creative process provides Stodel with a way to endlessly imagine and depict homes and families, functioning as vehicles through which she explores her ambivalent feelings towards these personal constructs and experiences. There are doors that go nowhere, windows which look out onto disjointed vistas, tables laid out with food that will never get eaten, faces of people who can never be identified, and negative spaces once inhabited; these disembodied signifiers are set against flat planes of soft, gentle colour rendered in paper or linen and accentuated, in parts, with metallic threads which connect and erase. For the artist, the process of cutting away the unwanted parts is a cathartic act which allows her to stitch and stick together new realities which float dreamily within the frame. Stodel’s work evokes powerful ghosts of the past and surreal dreams of the future.

 

ARTWORKS

 

INSTALLATION VIEWS

TO WHOM IT MAY CONCERN

14.07 - 14.08.2021

Winter Group Exhibition

To Whom It May Concern is a winter group exhibition featuring many beloved Salon Ninety One artists and some exciting new additions to our stable.

The phrase “to whom it may concern” is most often used in open letter formats where the recipient is unknown. For the past year, we have all experienced unprecedented change and disruptions to our daily life. Many of us would not have predicted that more than a year later we would still be dealing with the almost surreal and idiosyncratic “new normal”. With all that has had to be cancelled, rescheduled, changed, adjusted, and delayed, where does one put their feelings? How can this shift in our world view be put into words? And, if we could express how much the past year has changed us, who would we even address that to?

The exhibition will open on the 14th July and will run until the 14th of August 2021. To sign up to receive a catalogue on the day the show opens, please use the button below.

ARTISTS:

AMBER MOIR
ANDREW SUTHERLAND
CHLOE TOWNSEND
CLAIRE JOHNSON
FANIE BUYS
GITHAN COOPOO
HEIDI FOURIE
JEANNE HOFFMAN
KATRIN COETZER
KIRSTEN BEETS
MAROLIZE SOUTHWOOD
PAUL SENYOL
SHAKIL SOLANKI
SITAARA STODEL
ZARAH CASSIM

ARTWORKS

 

AMBER MOIR

ANDREW SUTHERLAND

CHLOE TOWNSEND

CLAIRE JOHNSON

FANIE BUYS

GITHAN COOPOO

HEIDI FOURIE

JEANNE HOFFMAN

KATRIN COETZER

KIRSTEN BEETS

MAROLIZE SOUTHWOOD

PAUL SENYOL

SHAKIL SOLANKI

SITAARA STODEL

ZARAH CASSIM

 

 

Sitaara Stodel

Sitaara Stodel

Sitaara Stodel (b.1991) is a Cape Town-based contemporary artist working across mediums of photography, collage, video, and printmaking. For the artist, moving house was a constant event throughout her life. Stodel recalls moving house forty times in her lifetime. During childhood, the artist, her sister, and mother moved into properties which they could not afford; which resulted in regular evictions. Since Stodel moved out of her familial home, the habit of constantly changing address has continued into her adult life. This unusual state of being finds expression within the artist’s work. Her pieces are created using other people’s family photographs that she collects at antique stores and markets. Through her work, Stodel curates her own memories of childhood and beyond using scenes of interiors and exteriors of houses, pets, prized home possessions, and landscapes. In the artist’s collages she is constantly tearing, cutting and putting back together these domestic scenes in an attempt to remake these memories. Stodel puts these artefacts back together using gold thread to represent the preciousness of memory. The artist also captures her own ideals of home into these scenes too: fresh flowers, framed artworks, houses with sea views and shiny cars.

Following her 2014 graduation from Michaelis School of Fine Art (University of Cape Town), Stodel was awarded the prestigious Tierney Fellowship, granting her the opportunity for further her practice and mentorship. In the years that followed, Stodel has taken part in number of shows across Cape Town, including at the Zeitz MOCAA, SMAC Gallery, Smith Gallery, Gallery MOMO, and Everard Read and has been involved in education on an ongoing basis. Currently working in the Michaelis photographic department as the technical officer of photography, Stodel is highly accomplished across multiple analogue photographic methods, and this experience has been key in shaping her various approaches to image-making.

 

UPCOMING EXHIBITIONS

Solo Exhibition | Date and Title to be announced soon

 

SELECTED PROJECTS & EXHIBITIONS

2021 - Open House, solo exhibition, Everard Read Circa, Cape Town. 2020 - The Spectacle, group exhibition, The Fourth, Cape Town; Kernel, Group show put together by artists, Cape Town; Apartment Vol.2, group show, The Fourth, Cape Town; Nostalgia, Daor Contemporary, group show, Cape Town; Investec Cape Town Art Fair, Smith, Cape Town. 2019 - Unsettled, Solo presentation at Investec Cape Town Art Fair, Smith, Cape Town; Two Trees, A Collaborative exhibition with Rosie Mudge, Smith, Cape Town; Rocks, group exhibition, Gallery Gallery, Johannesburg; Rendezvous II, group exhibition, Smith, Cape Town; Voices and Choices, group exhibition, Women’s Jail Constitution Hill, Johannesburg; To Thine Own Self Be True, group exhibition, Kelvin Corner, Cape Town; Borderlines, group exhibition, The Third Dot, Mauritius; Outside, group exhibition, RK Contemporary, Cape Town; #FREESPACE, group exhibition, Zeitz MOCAA, Cape Town; The Main Complaint, group exhibition, Zeitz MOCAA, Cape Town; FNB Joburg Art Fair, Smith, JHB; Investec Cape Town Art Fair, Smith, Cape Town. 2018 - No Ordinary Woman, group exhibition, PH Center, Cape Town; Close Encounters, group exhibition, SMITH, Cape Town; Shady Tactics, group exhibition, SMAC, Cape Town. 2017 - [in] appropriate, group exhibition, PH Centre, Cape Town; Marked – A Photographic Print Group Show, group exhibition, Eclectica Print Gallery, Cape Town; Displacement – A group show with other Tierney Fellowship, 99 Loop, Cape Town; Art Meets Camera: Closer than ever, group exhibition, MOMO, Cape Town. 2016 - Emerging Artists, group exhibition, Art in the Yard, Cape Town; Bad Habitus, group exhibition, JNR Muller’s Gallery, Cape Town; 2015 - Proposal, group exhibition, 6 Spin Street Gallery presented by JNR, Cape Town; Return to Sender, group exhibition, Centre for African Studies Gallery, Cape Town; Greatest Hits, group exhibition; Awarded the Tierney Fellowship Award. 2014 - The Domestic Odyssey, group exhibition, AVA, Cape Town; Awarded the Cecil Skotnes Scholarship award from the Michaelis School of Fine Art; Awarded Scholarship from the Centre for Curating the Archive for materials. 2013 - Sasol New Signatures Art Competition Top 100, group exhibition, Pretoria Arts Museum, Pretoria; Deans Merit list at the University of Cape Town; Chosen to participate in the Sasaol New Signatures Competition.

 

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