Still Life: A Contemporary Arrangement is a group exhibition exploring the still life genre through the lens of contemporary artists affiliated with David Krut Arts. The show highlights how still life—traditionally seen as a minor genre—continues to be a powerful space for experimentation, symbolism, and personal expression. The featured works reinterpret the genre in diverse ways, emphasising the careful arrangement of objects as a reflection of formal concerns, cultural contexts, and inner worlds. The exhibition invites viewers to engage with the overlooked, finding new meaning in the ordinary.

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David Krut Arts has locations in Johannesburg and New York.

In Johannesburg, we have exhibition project spaces at 151 Jan Smuts Avenue, Parkwood and a print workshop at Arts on Main, the major arts hub adjacent to downtown Johannesburg.

David Krut Workshop (DKW), based at Arts on Main, produces fine art editions and unique works on paper with both local and international artists some of which are featured at Latitudes Art Fair.

William Kentridge

Still Life with Fishbowl, 2024

Edition of 20 

Hardground etching with hand painting 

40 x 52.5 cm 

R95 000.00 VAT incl and framed as seen

William Kentridge (b. 1955) is a world renowned multidisciplinary artist, working across printmaking, drawing, sculpture, writing, film, performance, music, theatre and collaborative practices. His work follows themes of politics, science, literature and history, while also allowing for a sense of contradiction and uncertainty.

 

While many artists dabble in printmaking on the side of their practice, Kentridge is a modern pioneer in the medium – drawings and theatre projects regularly emerge from his prints, and vice versa. For Kentridge, printmaking is in itself a multi-disciplinary practice, considering an “etching as an extraordinary, ridiculously complicated form of animation, ” knowing that a single plate will constantly be reworked, resulting in several different states.

Studio Life: The Phillips Room, 2020

Edition of 18 

Photogravure

44 x 54cm 

POR

For Morandi, 2025

Edition of 16 

Spit-bite aquatint etching with drypoint

40 x 52.5 cm

R95 000.00 VAT incl and framed as seen

Adele van Heerden

In 2021 van Heerden completed a residency with David Krut Projects, which culminated in her solo exhibition, Field Trip, in 2022. She has also been featured in a number of group shows at our Johannesburg Gallery, including Alone of It’s Kind (2022), Creature Feature (2023) and Women in the Workshop (2023-2024).

Sage I, 2025

Unique 

Gouache on film 

54 x 81 cm

R33 200.00 VAT incl framed as seen 

Sage II, 2024

Unique 

Gouache on film 

54 x 81 cm

R33 200.00 VAT incl framed as seen 

Maja Maljević

Maja Maljević was born in Belgrade, Serbia, in 1973. In 2000 she moved to South Africa, in order to escape the political turmoil in her own country. She has been living and working in Johannesburg since then. 

Maja Maljević first began collaborating with David Krut Workshop (DKW) in 2007, when she began experimenting with printmaking as a way to expand her painting practice. Maljevic’s most recent collaboration culminated in a solo project: Showtime, 2025 at the David Krut Projects Gallery Johannesburg 

Jars and flower, 2025

Unique

monotype, drypoint with collage and handwork 

37 x 56 cm

R15 000.00 VAT incl and framed as seen

Red Flower, 2025

Unique

Monotype, drypoint with collage and handwork

37 x 56 cm

R15 000.00 VAT incl and framed as seen

Still Life, 2024

Varied Edition 1 of 7

Monotype, drypoint, collage and handwork

55 x 56 cm 

R15 000.00 VAT incl and framed as seen

Heidi Fourie

Heidi Fourie (b. 1990) uses oil painting to explore the relationship between people and the spaces they occupy. She takes inspiration from the medium’s natural tendency to represent organic lines and shapes. Curiosity motivates her practice, as demonstrated by her gestural representation, muted palette, and unique angular perspective. By emphasising the natural world through washed texture and depth, Fourie explores intuition and relativity.

Still Life, 2025

Unique 

Oil on board

70 x 60 cm

R29 000.00 VAT Inc and framed as seen

I’ll tell you by the fire, 2025

Unique 

Watercolour monotype

58 x 49 cm

R18 275.00 VAT Inc and framed as seen 

Boemo Diale

Boemo Diale (b. 2000) is a painter and sculptor who combines media to engage in a playful and dynamic historical dialogue with traditional art. Focusing on feminism, bodily autonomy, and the response to mental illness, her work remains light-hearted and bright. She utilises symbolism and abstraction in her vibrant figures to draw positive reflections on heavy subjects.

A big mess, 2023 

Unique works

Oil, watercolour monotype with linocut pronto printed chine collé and handwork

104.7 x 71.5 cm

R43 450.00 VAT inc and framed as seen

Aren’t you thankful it happened, 2025

Edition of 9 

Softground, sugar lift, drypoint and handpainting 

75 x 53 cm

R18 850.00 VAT Incl and framed as seen

It’s a two for one special, 2023

Unique 

Oil, watercolour monotype with linocut, pronto printed chine collé, collage and handwork

104.7 x 71.5 cm

R43 450.00 VAT Incl and framed as seen

Peter Cohen

Untitled, 2025

Edition of 9 

Hardground and aquatint etching with pronto lithography chine colle 

28.8 x 28.5 cm 

R8 400.00 VAT Incl and framed as seen
R6 900.00 VAT Incl unframed 

Peter Cohen is a Johannesburg-based architect and artist with a meticulous examination of the interplay between interior and exterior spaces and how this shifts our understanding of reality. Through a methodical layering process, he constructs environments that challenge conventional understandings of spatial dynamics and the nature of human perception.

 

 His imagery manipulates visual elements to prompt viewers to investigate the reliability of memory and its role in shaping individual and collective experiences.

The artist achieves this through the act of dissolution – creating layered day dreams out of commonplace scenery where reality loses its definition, inside and outside become interchangeable and memory and truth are mirrored distortions.

Still Life with Portrait, 2024

Edition of 15

Mixed media (Relief monotype, soft ground hand painting with collage)

76.5 cm x 112 cm

R51 050.00 VAT Incl and framed as seen

R40 250.00 VAT Incl unframed

Nina Torr

Nina Torr (b. 1987) is a South African artist and illustrator. Through sweet, fantastical and almost surreal imagery, Torr’s work explores mental landscapes inhabited by characters pursuing a journey of sorts. Her images imply open-ended narratives that invite the viewer to participate and engage with them on a personal level.

Codex Marginalia 5, 2023

Variable Edition of 13

Hardground etching with chine collé on silkscreen 

45 cm x 31 cm

R7 500.00 VAT Incl and framed as seen

Codex Marginalia 9, 2023

Variable Edition of  9

Hardground etching with hand painting 

45 cm x 31 cm

R7 500.00 VAT Incl and framed as seen

Codex Marginalia 2, 2023

Variable Edition of 13

Hardground etching with chine collé 

45 cm x 31 cm

R7 500.00 VAT Incl and framed as seen

Codex Marginalia 3, 2023

Variable Edition of 13

Hardground etching with chine collé

45 cm x 31 cm

R7 500.oo VAT Incl and framed as seen

Anna Van der Ploeg

Anna van der Ploeg (b. 1992) is a contemporary South African artist working in painting, printmaking and sculpture, primarily, though she does not limit herself to those fields. Her work explores metanarratives and searches for new metaphors to convey insights into our common assemblies, to find rhythms in the motion of social, artistic and intellectual contexts.

All the bugs in my garden know your name 1 , 2024

Edition Variable 1 of 13

Etching and collé

104,4 cm x 36 cm

R14 800.00 VAT Inc and framed as seen

All the bugs in my garden know your name 6, 2024

Unique

Variable Edition 6 of 10

Etching and collé

104,4 cm x 36 cm

R14 800.00 VAT Incl and framed as seen

Stephen Langa

Stephen Langa (b. 1995) is a contemporary South African artist. Langa’s intimate imagery explores stories of the people, experiences and environment around him. Harkening back to artists like George Pemba, Claude Monet, Gerard Sekoto, Jo Maseko and more. His work presents visions of new economic narratives and reality.

A Chapter of Change and Wisdom, 2024

Unique

Oil based monotype

71.5 x 87.7  cm

R25 650.00

The White Tail Cafe, 2025

Unique

Oil based monotype

41 cm x 32.9 cm

R8 400.00 VAT Inc and framed as seen

The Bird Visitor, 2025

Unique

Oil based monotype

61 cm x 51.9 cm

R18 500.00 VAT Incl and framed as seen

Heike Jeske

Heike Jeske (b. 1981) is a Pretoria-based mixed media, printmaking and installation artist from South Africa. She draws her inspiration from roses, having grown up on a Rose Farm and spent her childhood surrounded by this beloved flower. Her work ponders why human’s have been so captivated by this flower.

 

 Her work tends towards large-scale, site-specific installations that seamlessly merge with their surroundings, but still asserting their presence through their size. She makes use of space, lighting and colour to metamorphose her art, imbuing it with diverse moods and atmospheres. She works through a variety of mediums, exploring boundaries of creativity.

Rose Boquet, 2024

unique

Watercolour monotype

30.2 cm x 39 cm

R 3 900.00 VAT Inc and framed as seen

Shadow of a Rose, 2024

unique

Watercolour monotype with charcoal handwork and watercolour handwork

24.5 cm x 29 cm

R3 000.00 VAT Incl and framed as seen

Phumulani Ntuli

Phumulani Ntuli (b. 1986) is a contemporary South African multidisciplinary artist. Working between documentary and fiction, Ntuli’s practice deals with omissions within archives. As he explains: “The continued themes I have explored in my practice have been notions of black futurity, the archive and its tensions. consistently delve within notions of collective autobiographies and their surrounding social political conditions.”

Temporal Moment, 2024

unique

Watercolour monotype pronto lithography on Tosa Washi, Chine Colle with handwork 

94 x 71.5 cm

R32 070.00 VAT Incl and framed as seen

The Sample Effect, 2023

unique

Watercolour monotype and pronto

72.7 cm x 83.5 cm

R32 070.00 VAT Incl and framed as seen

Roxy Kaczmarek

Roxy Kaczmarek (b. 1990) is a South African artist, printmaker, and educator based in Johannesburg. Her work explores the relationship between plants and people in overlooked urban spaces, often combining traditional printmaking with unconventional materials like cement. She holds a BFA from the University of Cape Town and a master’s in technology (cum laude) from the University of Johannesburg. Kaczmarek has worked at Warren Editions and is currently a printmaker and project manager at the David Krut Workshop. She lectures part-time at UJ and is a member of The Printing Girls Collective. In 2022, she completed a residency at the Leipzig International Art Programme in Germany.

Winter Flowers, 2025 

Unique

Watercolour monotype 

45.5 x 35.5 cm 

R5 650 VAT Incl

Taking notes, 2025

Unique

Watercolour monotype

29.5 x 24 cm

R3 350.00 VAT Incl

Inside looking out, 2025

Unique

Watercolour monotype

29.5 x 24 cm 

R3 350.00 VAT Incl

Take a moment, 2025

Unique 

Watercolour monotype

29.5 x 24 cm

R3 350.00 VAT Incl

Nicky’s Palms, 2025

Unique 

Watercolour monotype 

29.5 x 24 cm 

R3 350.00 VAT Incl

Cockscomb and Fynbos, 2025

Unique 

Watercolour monotype 

45.5 x 32.5 cm 

R5 650 VAT Incl

 

Bronwen Findlay

Bronwen Findlay (b. 1953) is a South African painter and printmaker whose work is informed by the places she has lived in or visited, as well as the people she collaborates with and the things that she collects. As a painter who takes great pleasure from ornamental styles, Findlay’s work is intensely colourful and intricately detailed.

 

The subjects of Bronwen’s works are inspired by her everyday life; often in her paintings these commonplace objects are incorporated into the work and juxtaposed with seemingly unrelated objects. She often chooses subject matter that is easily dismissed as feminine or domestic.

Sunflower/Dahlia, 2025

Unique 

Oil on Canvas

69cm x 91 cm

R34 500.00 VAT Incl

Plates Full, 1999

Unique

Oil on Canva

65 cm x 40 cm

R19 440.00 VAT Incl and frame as seen

Deborah Bell

Memo/Omen, 2012

Edition of 20

Drypoint and Etching

24.7 x 39.5 cm

R7 000.00 VAT Incl and framed as seen

Deborah Bell (b. 1957) is a contemporary South African painter, printmaker and sculptor. Her earlier more political work has given way to a broader, deeper investigation into the border between mortality and immortality, matter and spirit, presence and absence, the quotidian and the mythic, the grounded and transcendent. In recent years she has developed an immediately recognisable visual language, her images simple, stark, symbolic – grounded, silent, still, poised. In her iconography she draws from a range of cultures and a range of philosophies and psychologies. She is interested in the half-formed image – the unwritten, as yet unformed spaces we move towards in our quest for self knowledge.

Memo Version B, 2012

Edition of 10

Drypoint and Etching

24.7 x 39.5 cm

R7 600.00 VAT Incl and framed as seen

Memo Version A, 2012

Edition of 10

Drypoint and Etching

24.7  x 55 cm

R7 600.00 VAT Incl and framed as seen

Throughout art history, the still life has served as a fertile ground for artistic invention. Traditionally
considered a minor genre – often defined by the absence of the human figure – still life has
nevertheless been a site of experimentation, symbolism, and reflection.


Margit Rowell, former Chief Curator of Drawings at the Museum of Modern Art, noted that artists
have used the seemingly static depiction of objects to challenge the perception of still life as a lesser
form. In doing so, they offer a unique index of their formal concerns, personal interests, and cultural
contexts.


This exhibition presents works by contemporary artists, each reinterpreting the still life tradition in
their own way. Whether through the arrangement of inanimate objects or the processes involved in
rendering them, these works invite the viewer to reconsider what is often overlooked.


At its core, the still life is an arrangement of objects connected to form a unified, organic whole –
visually compelling and often rich in hidden or symbolic meaning. It is a genre rooted in the artist’s
choice and organisation of elements, used to express both personal and collective worldviews, and
to reflect structures of desire, perception, and technical innovation.

The Blue House

151 Jan Smuts Avenue, Parkwood


David Krut Workshop

264 Fox Street, Johannesburg


info-jhb@davidkrut.com

www.davidkrutprojects.com

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