Artist Database

Sanell Aggenbach is a painter, sculptor and printmaker based in Cape Town. She graduated from Stellenbosch University with a BA in Fine Art in 1997. Aggenbach’s work focuses mainly on feminist themes, informed by historic and private references, cultural heritage, social history and memory. In much of her work she is a social commentator, deconstructing the past by reinterpreting it with a subtly humorous and playful contemporary female perspective. Aggenbach has developed her own style of combining painting with sculptural elements and incorporating traditionally female crafts of tapestry and stitching.

Sanell Aggenbach has been nominated for numerous awards. Amongst others, she was chosen for the UNESCO-Aschberg Residency programme in Sanskriti Kendra, New Delhi, India in 1999, she won the Absa L’Atelier Award in 2003, and in 2009 she was awarded the Ampersand Fellowship in New York.

Aggenbach has exhibited extensively in group and solo exhibitions in Europe, the United States of America and South Africa. Her artwork is represented in numerous private and public collections, including the Iziko South African National Gallery, Anglo Gold, SABC, ABSA and 21C Museum in Kentucky, United States of America.