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.