Biography
Born in Zambia (1988) and currently based in Johannesburg, Nolan Oswald Dennis works in drawing, painting, installation, space, time and memory. Though research-based, his work emerges as a reaction – finding its form as he tries to process his thoughts and interests, which often relate in some way to (South) African history, popular memory and information systems. The artists writes “ I am interested in aspects of social fiction: mapping the contours of our highly coded human environment, reading the signs/ciphers/markers of blackness in thisness, the mechanics of imaginary topologies and the collapse of social certainty. Through distorting, dismantling and dissenting archival notions of memory, my current work tries to map a history, write a present and trace a future. Using African counter-memory to populate the liminal space between the tactical fictions and strategic realities of contemporary South Africa and Africa. By reprogramming mythologies, fragmenting superstitions and exploring vernacular imaginings of the future and self, I try to stretch the possibilities of my own existence. I aim for collaborative processes and locating work in the negotiated public spaces of the metropolis – walls, surfaces, pavements, vectors, openings, spaces between.”
Solo Exhibitions
2016
Furthermore, Goodman Gallery, Johannesburg, South Africa
Group Exhibitions
2016
New Revolutions: Goodman Gallery at 50 , Goodman Gallery, Johannesburg, South Africa
New Revolutions: Goodman Gallery at 50 , Goodman Gallery, Cape Town, South Africa
2015
Young, Gifted and Black, Goodman Gallery, Johannesburg, South Africa
Edge of Silence, Goodman Gallery, Cape Town, South Africa
Post African Futures, Goodman Gallery, Johannesburg, South Africa
Other Peoples Memories, Goodman Gallery, Johannesburg, South Africa
2014
Working Title_, Goodman Gallery, Cape Town, South Africa
*2013*_Ussher Fort_,Chale Wote, Art Fesitval, Ga-Mashie, Accra, Ghana
2012
SOCIAL LANDSCAPE PROJECT: Transition and Show Us Our Land_, Market Photo Workshop,
Johannesbrug, South Africa
SOCIAL LANDSCAPE PROJECT: Transition and Show Us Our Land, Les Rencontres d’Arles _,France
Courtesy of Goodman Gallery
