"You'll find multiple versions of Pamela Phatsimo Sunstrum in her solo exhibition at Galerie Lelong. The Botswanan multidisciplinary artist places alter egos in make-believe scenarios. This show, in particular, manifests visions of war where intimacy is the focal point and savagery is the backdrop. Parabellum - the title of the exhibition, drawn from the Latin phrase meaning "If you want peace, prepare for war" - suggests the tension and relationship between the two states."
"In "It is because I want you to go on" (2025), one woman prepares to clean the other's feet, one version of herself clearly below the other physically and hierarchically. A sultry gaze from one to the other suggests a potential longing bordering on sexual desire, but induces a sense of discomfort in a viewer who can't discern whether the attraction is innocent, a means of exerting power, or a survival strategy."
Pamela Phatsimo Sunstrum stages multiple alter egos across wood panels, placing imagined female figures in scenarios that conflate intimacy and savagery. Parabellum, taken from the Latin 'If you want peace, prepare for war,' frames the exhibition's tension between closeness and conflict. Masculine symbols — pipes, oversized shoes, notched axes — recur while men are absent, producing a world where women enact both harm and care. Paintings present ambiguous power dynamics, such as one woman tending another's feet with a sultry gaze that unsettles viewers about desire, dominance, or survival. The works complicate easy moral readings of affection amid violence.
Read at Hyperallergic
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