PENELOPE STUTTERHEIME
Depicting inner landscapes has long been South African artist, Penelope Stutterheime’s preoccupation. Drawing inspiration from dreams and the unconscious, her layered and textured oil paintings use impasto and intensely vibrant colour to create mesmerising abstract works
PENELOPE STUTTERHEIME, Weaver II
Oil on canvas, 75 x 80 cm
Depicting inner landscapes has long been South African artist Penelope Stutterheime’s preoccupation. Drawing inspiration from dreams and the unconscious, her layered and textured oil paintings use impasto and intensely vibrant colour to create mesmerising abstract works.
Stutterheime’s work is highly symbolic. Conveyed through colour and form, the images are a representation of transformation and resolution. Her paintings are a portrayal of her own inner spiritual process and the traversing of personal and collective boundaries. The artist explains further:
‘The work reveals a slow unfolding, which continues still, of finding my voice, my dance, my melody. It is nourished by intense feeling, emotion contained on a white canvas, to be felt, to be experienced, to be read from the place where no words yet lie’.
Stutterheime’s process of making is intuitive and organic, the flat forms she places onto the canvas present a diffused sense of energy. The daughter of a forester, Stutterheime developed her intense love for landscape as a child, growing up in Newlands Forest, Cape Town. She also credits this for her particular and unique love of the colour green and its continuous presence throughout her works, identifying it as a soothing and comforting colour. Stutterheime lives and works in Cape Town. She studied part-time with the artist Simon Stone and the late Bill Ainslie, one of South Africa’s finest abstractionists, but aside from this is largely self-taught. She has participated in solo and group exhibitions consistently over the past thirty years. Her paintings are included in private and corporate collections around the world.
PENELOPE STUTTERHEIME, Weaver III
Oil on canvas, 80 x 80 cm
Depicting inner landscapes has long been South African artist Penelope Stutterheime’s preoccupation. Drawing inspiration from dreams and the unconscious, her layered and textured oil paintings use impasto and intensely vibrant colour to create mesmerising abstract works.
Stutterheime’s work is highly symbolic. Conveyed through colour and form, the images are a representation of transformation and resolution. Her paintings are a portrayal of her own inner spiritual process and the traversing of personal and collective boundaries. The artist explains further:
‘The work reveals a slow unfolding, which continues still, of finding my voice, my dance, my melody. It is nourished by intense feeling, emotion contained on a white canvas, to be felt, to be experienced, to be read from the place where no words yet lie’.
Stutterheime’s process of making is intuitive and organic, the flat forms she places onto the canvas present a diffused sense of energy. The daughter of a forester, Stutterheime developed her intense love for landscape as a child, growing up in Newlands Forest, Cape Town. She also credits this for her particular and unique love of the colour green and its continuous presence throughout her works, identifying it as a soothing and comforting colour. Stutterheime lives and works in Cape Town. She studied part-time with the artist Simon Stone and the late Bill Ainslie, one of South Africa’s finest abstractionists, but aside from this is largely self-taught. She has participated in solo and group exhibitions consistently over the past thirty years. Her paintings are included in private and corporate collections aroun
PENELOPE STUTTERHEIME, Weaver V
Oil on canvas, 120 x 120 cm
Depicting inner landscapes has long been South African artist Penelope Stutterheime’s preoccupation. Drawing inspiration from dreams and the unconscious, her layered and textured oil paintings use impasto and intensely vibrant colour to create mesmerising abstract works.
Conveyed through hue and form, the images are a representation of transformation. Her paintings are a portrayal of her own inner spiritual processes, while also interrogating universal consciousness.
The daughter of a forester, Stutterheime developed her intense love for landscape as a child growing up in Newlands Forest, Cape Town. She studied part-time with the artist Simon Stone and the late Bill Ainslie, one of South Africa’s finest abstractionists, but aside from this is largely self-taught. She has participated in solo and group exhibitions consistently over the past thirty years, and her paintings are included in private and corporate collections around the world.
"My practice engages actively with layering the literal passage of time and formal artistic considerations onto one symbolic surface. The choice of colours represents my own mindscape; in turn I hope to reflect on larger
considerations, offering a reconnection and weaving together of humanity’s mindfulness and beyond."
- Penelope Stutterheime
PENELOPE STUTTERHEIME, Weaving (summer) II
Oil on canvas, 110 x 100 cm
Conveyed through hue and form, the images are a representation of transformation. Penelope Stutterheime's paintings are a portrayal of her own inner spiritual processes, while also interrogating universal consciousness.
PENELOPE STUTTERHEIME, Weaving (summer) III
Oil on canvas, 80 x 160 cm
The work reveals a slow unfolding, and a weaving together of states of being. Daniel C. Wahl wrote that “weavers are healers of the unbroken whole – connecting people and place in elegant tapestries of shared meaning and visions of a world that works for all.” My practice engages actively with layering the literal passage of time and formal artistic considerations onto one symbolic surface. The choice of colours represents my own mindscape; in turn I hope to reflect on larger considerations, offering a reconnection and weaving together of humanity’s mindfulness and beyond.
- Penelope Stutterheime
PENELOPE STUTTERHEIME, Weaving (summer) IV
Oil on canvas, 125 x 130 cm
Depicting inner landscapes has long been South African artist Penelope Stutterheime’s preoccupation. Drawing inspiration from dreams and the unconscious, her layered and textured oil paintings use impasto and intensely vibrant colour to create mesmerising abstract works.
Conveyed through hue and form, the images are a representation of transformation. Her paintings are a portrayal of her own inner spiritual processes, while also interrogating universal consciousness.
Specialists in contemporary art from South Africa. Established in 1913. South African artists are part of the global conversation. We seek to make their voices heard.