(1991 – )

Sitaara Stodel
Contemporary
Overview

South African contemporary artist Sitaara Stodel, born in 1991 in Cape Town, graduated from Michaelis School of Fine Art, in Cape Town, with a Bachelor of Fine Arts, majoring in photography.  Stodel works across various mediums, ranging from photography, collage, video, and printmaking.

For Strodel, moving house was a constant event throughout her life. Stodel recalls moving houses forty times in her lifetime. During childhood, the artist, her sister, and her mother moved into properties that they could not afford, resulting in regular evictions. Since Stodel moved out of her familial home, the habit of constantly changing addresses 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 pieces these artifacts back together using gold thread to represent the precious value of memory. The artist also captures her own ideals of home in these scenes too: fresh flowers, framed artworks, houses with sea views, and shiny cars.

After her 2014 graduation, Stodel was awarded the prestigious Tierney Fellowship, granting her the opportunity to further her practice and mentorship. In the years that followed, Stodel has taken part in several 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.

Education

2011 – 2014
BA in Fine Art at the Michaelis School of Fine Art. Majored in photography in 2013

Exhibitions

Solo Exhibitions

2023

Sunny Side Up, Group exhibition, Graham Contemporary, Johannesburg, South Africa

2022

New Day, Group exhibition, Graham Contemporary, Johannesburg, South Africa

2021
‘The House in My Head Has Many Stories’, Salon 91, Cape Town

2019
‘Unsettled’, Solo booth at the Investec Cape Town Art Fair, Cape Town


Group Exhibitions

2022
‘New Day’ Spring Group Exhibition, Graham Contemporary, Johannesburg
‘Slow Intimacy’, GUS, Stellebosch
FNB Art Fair, Bubblegum Gallery
‘Where do I Begin’, Stevenson, Cape Town
‘Vonds | Fonds’, Oude Leeskamer, Cape Town
‘Romance!?’, 52 Buitenkant street, Cape Town
‘Charting the Unchartered’, Gallery (GUS), Cape Town
‘Interferences’, Brutal Curation, Cape Town

2021
‘Sixty Six’, Historic Building, London
‘Premise’, by Joe Prussian in abandoned building, Cape Town
‘Open House’, CIRCA at Everard Read, Cape Town

2020
‘The Spectacle’, The Fourth, Cape Town
‘Kernel’, Group show put together by artists, Cape Town
‘Apartment Vol.2’, The Fourth, Cape Town
Investec Cape Town Art Fair, Cape Town
‘Nostalgia’, Daor Contemporary, Cape Town

2019
‘Rendezvous’, SMITH, Cape Town
‘Rocks’, Gallery Gallery, Johannesburg
Johannesburg Art Fair, Johannesburg
‘Voices and Choices’, Women’s Jail Constitution Hill, Johannesburg
‘Two Trees’, Collaborative group show with Rosie Mudge at SMITH, Cape Town
‘To Thine Own Self Be True’, Kelvin Corner, Cape Town
‘Borderlines’, The Third Dot, Mauritius
‘Outside’, RK Contemporary, Cape Town
‘#FREESPACE’, Zeitz MOCAA, Cape Town
‘The Main Complaint’, Zeitz MOCAA, Cape Town

2018
‘Rendezvous’, SMITH, Cape Town
‘No Ordinary Woman’, PH Center, Cape Town2018 Close Encounters, SMITH, Cape Town
‘Shady Tactics’, SMAC, Cape Town

2017
‘[in] appropriate’, PH Centre, Cape Town
‘Marked – A Photographic Print Group Show’, Eclectica Print Gallery, Cape Town
‘Displacement – A group show with other Tierney Fellow’, 99 Loop, Cape Town
‘Art Meets Camera: Closer than ever’, MOMO, Cape Town

2016
‘Emerging Artists’, Art in the Yard, Cape Town
‘Bad Habitus’, JNR Muller’s Gallery, Cape Town

2015
‘Proposal’, 6 Spin Street Gallery presented by JNR, Cape Town
‘Return to Sender’, Centre for African Studies Gallery, Cape Town
‘Greatest Hits 2014: The Domestic Odyssey’, AVA, Cape Town

2013
Sasol New Signatures Art Competition Top 100, Pretoria Arts Museum, Pretoria

Awards & Achievements

2015
Awarded the Tierney Fellowship Award

2014
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
Deans Merit list at the University of Cape Town
Chosen to participate in the Sasaol New Signatures Competition.

2009
Matriculated with 5 distinctions from Fish Hoek High School

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