Nolan Oswald Dennis

Throwers is the first UK solo exhibition by Johannesburg-based artist Nolan Oswald Dennis. Including large-scale murals, intricate diagrams, and a 3D-printed installation, the exhibition investigates the intersections of geology, cosmology, and political histories. The works examine the conditions that organise our social sub-terrain and the structures that pre-determine the limits of our political imagination.

Featuring new and existing works, Throwers challenges the colonial conception of a singular, knowable “world”, instead suggesting new models for envisioning a Black planet. One model is a new iteration of recurse 4 a late planet (2024-ongoing), a vast wall mural weaving cosmological, geological and techno-political knowledge towards a social history of stones. Nolan’s diagram draws from an archive of near-Earth-asteroids and their cosmic journeys, paying particular attention to the “potentially-hazardous-objects” that periodically threaten catastrophic damage to our planet.

Throwers is contextualised by the Black Earth Study Club. Convened by Imani Mason Jordan, the club invites artists, writers, and scholars to contribute to a series of events that reflect on the topics orbiting Nolan’s practice, offering a relaxed environment to reflect on the personal, philosophical, historical, political, scientific, and technological.

The Lead Supporters for Nolan Oswald Dennis' exhibition are Marcus and Alexa Waley-Cohen. Headline Supporters are Mercedes Vilardell and Goodman Gallery, with additional support from the Henry Moore Foundation. The exhibition is presented in partnership with Swiss Institute New York. Gasworks’ Exhibitions programme is supported by Catherine Petitgas, Gasworks Exhibitions Supporters and Arts Council England. Gasworks' 2025/26 programme is generously funded by Cockayne Grants for the Arts, a Donor Advised Fund held at The Prism Charitable Trust.

Nolan Oswald Dennis (b. 1988, Lusaka, Zambia) lives and works in Johannesburg. Dennis holds a B.Arch from the University of the Witwatersrand and an MS in Art, Culture and Technology from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Recent solo exhibitions include overturns, Swiss Institute New York (2025); understudies, Zeitz MOCAA, Cape Town; geo-logics, Kunstinstituut Melly, Rotterdam (both 2024); a recurse 4 [3] worlds, Back wall project, Kunsthalle Basel, Basel (2023). Recent group exhibitions include Traces of Ecstasy, Institute for Contemporary Art at Virginia Commonwealth University, Richmond, Virginia and Lagos Biennial Fourth Edition, Lagos (2024); Cinema Cosmos, 14th Shanghai Biennial, Shanghai (2024); Memory is an Editing Station, Biennial SescVideobrasil, Sao Paulo (2023); and This Too Is a Map, Seoul Mediacity Biennale, Seoul (2023). Dennis is the 2016 winner of the FNB Arts Prize and the 2023 Videobrasil Jury prize.

They are a founding member of the artist group NTU; the Indexing Literacy Program; and the convenor of Black Earth Study Club. Their writing has been published in academic and art publications including The Funambulist, Clara Architecture/Recherche Journal, Unearthing Traces, Mater and the inaugural Serpentine Reader amongst others. They are currently a Research Associate at VIAD, University of Johannesburg and a member of the Edouard Glissant Art Fund Scientific Committee.