Nolan

Oswald

Dennis

Nolan Oswald Dennis (b. 1988, Lusaka, Zambia) is a para-disciplinary artist from Johannesburg, South Africa. Their practice explores what they call ‘a black consciousness of space’: the material and metaphysical conditions of decolonization. Dennis’ work questions the politics of space (and time) through a system-specific, rather than site-specific approach. They are concerned with the hidden structures that predetermine the limits of our social and political imagination. Through a language of diagrams, drawings and models they explore a hidden landscape of systematic and structural conditions that organise our political sub-terrain.

In 2025, Dennis presented their first UK institutional solo exhibition at Gasworks London, and their first US institutional solo exhibition at the Swiss Institute. On the occasion of the exhibition, the Swiss Institute together with Zeitz MOCAA, Cape Town and Koenig will publish the first ever monograph on Dennis’s practice.

In 2024, Dennis designed the 'Traces of Ecstasy' pavilion and exhibition project for the Lagos Biennial in Tafawa Balewa Square. An adapted version of this project was on view at the Institute for Contemporary Art at Virginia Commonwealth University in the same year. Dennis was also shortlisted for the Future Generation Art Prize 2023/24.

Dennis was the 2020 artist in residence at NTUCCA (Singapore) and the 2021 artist in residence at the Delfina Foundation (London). They were awarded the FNB Arts Prize in 2016. They are a founding member of artist groups NTU and the Index Literacy Program, as well as a research associate at the VIAD research centre at the University of Johannesburg.

Solo shows include: Superpositions, In_Site, San Diego (2025), throwers, Gasworks London (2025); overturns, Swiss Institute, New York (2025); UNDERSTUDIES, Zeitz MOCAA, Cape Town (2024); geo-logics, Kunstinsituut Melly, Netherlands (2024); Nolan Oswald Dennis, Goodman Gallery, Johannesburg (2023); Positions #7, Van Abbemuseum, Eindhoven, the Netherlands (2023); models (from a black planetarium), Centre d’Art Neuchâtel, Neuchâtel, Switzerland (2022); Specifications for a Reverse Archaeology, The Javett Art Centre at the University of Pretoria (2022-2023); conditions, Goodman Gallery, Cape Town (2021); Options, Goodman Gallery, Cape Town, (2019).

Group shows and biennales include: The Three-legged Cat, Istanbul Biennale (2025), THE EARTH, THE FIRE, THE WATER, AND THE WINDS, Instituto Tomie Ohtake, São Paulo (2025), From the Cosmos to the Commons: Between Stars and Signals, Kunsthaus Hamburg (2025) Black Ancient Futures, Museum of Art, Architecture and Technology, Lisbon (2024); back wall project, Kunsthalle Basel (2024); 12th Seoul Mediacity Biennale (2023); the 12th Liverpool Biennial (2023), Frieze, Seoul (2023); the Young Congo Biennale (2019), Museu d’Art Contemporani de Barcelona, MACBA (2018); Palais de Tokyo, Paris; ARoS Aarhus, Denmark; 9th Berlin Biennale (2016); Poetics of Relation, LIYH, Geneva (2015).

Collections include: A4 Arts Foundation Cape Town, South Africa, the Van Abbemuseum, Eindhoven, The Netherlands and MUDAM, Luxembourg

Dennis lives and works in Johannesburg, South Africa.