The doors will open on Saturday, the 7th of June at 11 am – 1pm.
The Show runs until the 28th of June

Riders Of The Low Plains
Oil, Spray paint and Acrylic on Canvas
140cm x 180cm

Across The Living Land

Chris Denovan

In this new body of large-scale paintings, Chris Denovan turns his gaze outward—from the symbolic interiors of the body to the expansive terrain of the natural world. Across The Living Land is a journey through sunlit plains, quiet lakes, and dreamlike deserts, where figures, animals, and objects drift in and out of focus, united by their shared presence in the land they move through.

Working in a hybrid style that blends gestural abstraction with stylised figuration, Denovan brings together thick impasto oils, luminous acrylic gradients, and sharp geometric forms. The figures—humans, birds, riders, watchers—are rendered through stencilled spray paint, their silhouettes softened by selective, detailed additions in oil. They hover on the edge of solidity, caught between memory and myth, between presence and passage.

There is a warmth and openness to these works, an almost utopian vision of coexistence. In paintings like Desert Dream, a surreal palette creates an otherworldly calm. Through the Shallow Blue shows men gliding in a kayak, their oars barely touching the water. The Bird Watchers, Next Springs Promise, and Riders of the Low Plains evoke scenes of observance, patience, and subtle movement through space. In Garden Shade, shadow and sunlight meet in quiet harmony, hinting at a moment of refuge.

As in Denovan’s earlier work, there is a balance between the abstract and the symbolic, the intuitive and the deliberate. Yet here, the classical figure is loosened, made fluid—an inhabitant of space rather than a subject within it. Across The Living Land is both an exploration of the external world and a continuation of Denovan’s pursuit to depict human existence: not as isolated or heroic, but as attuned—wandering, watching, and wholly part of the land itself.

Chris Denovan (b. 1983) lives and works in Cape Town, South Africa and in Puglia, Italy. Across The Living Land is his thirteenth solo exhibition. In 2019 he was granted the Bosch and Simons Art Residency in Chelva, Spain. Denovan's work has featured in the the Irma Stern Museum (2018), the RMB Latitudes Art Fair Johannesburg (2023 - 2024) and the Investec Cape Town Art Fair (2023 - 2025). Denovan’s work is in the Hans Porer collection in Switzerland, the Celvin/Uller collection in Sweden and the IDA Headquarters in Copenhagen.

The Bird Watchers
Oil, Spray paint and Acrylic on Canvas
96cm x 230cm