PENELOPE STUTTERHEIME
(b. 1958, Cape Town, South Africa)

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 artist explains:

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.

Stutterheime developed her intense love for landscape as a child growing up on the edge of Newlands Forest 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, and her paintings are included in private and corporate collections around the world. She is based in Cape Town.

SELECTED SOLO EXHIBITIONS

2025
Weaving, Everard Read, Cape Town, South Africa

2023
Hearth, Everard Read, London, UK

2022
PENELOPE STUTTERHEIME: Sanctuary, Everard Read, Cape Town, South Africa

2019
Mapping the Interior, Everard Read, London, UK 
Mapping, Everard Read, Cape Town, South Africa
 
2017
Merging, Everard Read Gallery London, UK

2013
A Sense of Place, Everard Read Gallery, Cape Town, South Africa

2012
Love Poem, Myerson Fine Art, London, UK

2011
Exhale, Myerson Fine Art, London, UK

2010
New Works, Everard Read, Cape Town, South Africa

2007
Solo, Brundyn + Cape Town, Cape Town, South Africa

2005
Penny Stutterheime, with Myerson Fine Art, UK

SELECTED GROUP EXHIBITIONS

2025
10 Years | Summer 2025, Everard Read, London, UK
Matter Matters | Artists & Their Media, Everard Read, London, UK

2024
WINTER 24/25: A Group Show, Everard Read, London, UK
INNER SANCTUM: 50 Artists Explore Their Studios, Everard Read, Johannesburg

2023
110 Year Anniversary Show, Everard Read, London, UK
What I Feel When I Think About The Cosmos, Everard Read, Franschhoek, South Africa

2022
Summer Exhibition, Everard Read, London, UK
Winter 2022|23, Everard Read, London, UK
INVESTEC CAPE TOWN ART FAIR, Everard Read, Cape Town, South Africa
Spring, Everard Read, Franschhoek, South Africa

2021
Transitory Terrain, Everard Read, London, UK
Winter, Everard Read, Cape Town, South Africa
Summer, Everard Read, Cape Town, South Africa
Oasis, Everard Read, UK and South Africa
Spring Show, Everard Read, Johannesburg, South Africa

2020
Still, online exhibition, Everard Read, UK and South Africa
Staring Straight to the Future, online exhibition, Everard Read, UK and South Africa
Winter, Everard Read, London, UK

2019
Winter, Everard Read, Cape Town, South Africa
Summer, Everard Read, Cape Town, South Africa
Southern Aspect - A Group Exhibition, Everard Read, London, UK

2017
SUMMER, Everard Read Cape Town, Cape Town, South Africa
WINTER, Everard Read Cape Town, Cape Town, South Africa
Southern Abstraction, Everard Read London, London, UK
Cubicle Series, CIRCA Cape Town, South Africa

2015
Penelope Stutterheime and Galia Gluckman, Everard Read Gallery, Cape Town, South Africa

2014
Summer Season, Everard Read Gallery, Cape Town, South Africa
Winter, Everard Read Gallery, Cape Town, South Africa

2012
Small Works, Everard Read Gallery, Cape Town, South Africa

2011
15th Anniversary, Everard Read Gallery, Cape Town, South Africa
Incite, Myerson Fine Art, London, UK

2010
Saracens, Myerson Fine Art, London, UK

2009
Rising Up, Myerson Fine Art, London, UK

2008
A Way Through, Everard Read, Cape Town, South Africa

2005
Art London5, Myerson Fine Art, London, UK

2001
Group show, Everard Read Gallery, Cape Town, South Africa

SELECTED COLLECTIONS

Brait SE Investment Collection, South Africa & Luxembourg
Cazenove Capital Management London, UK
Common Wealth Bank Collection, Australia
Coronation Investment Holdings Collection, South Africa
H B D Mark Shuttleworth Collection, South Africa
Investec Bank Collection, South Africa
Nashua Collection, South Africa
Old Mutual PLC Collection, South Africa
Old Mutual Bank, South Africa