DEON VENTER
(b.1953, Eastern Cape, South Africa)

“Whatever you have to say,” wrote poet Charles Olson, “leave the roots on, let them / dangle / Just to make clear / Where they come from.”

Venter’s paintings, which are almost of necessity big, raw, brawny, caustic and convulsive – all qualities which lie somewhere quite beyond their being merely “expressive” or “expressionistic” – are quite clearly dedicated to the galvanizing of understanding, and perhaps to some subsequent transformative and cathartic effect generated, in the viewer, by the dark scale of the events which are his subject.

There is a stern nobility about Deon Venter’s paintings, the origin of which may well lie in the epic grieving that informs them. It’s as if each of these big tortured pictures – pictures that are distressed both literally and metaphorically – can be said to bear witness to a specific node or crisis event in recent world history, some extreme fallout from the human condition that qualifies his art as both political and, in the long run, historical, albeit in a very special sense. Venter’s paintings do not, for example, document. Rather, they memorialize, contextualize, and, in the end, provide something like benediction; a palm of understanding proffered at the end of the mind’s bitter journeying through experience.

This is the space in which Venter’s paintings seem to come into being: in the highly-charged gap between a wrenching, disorienting, destabilizing historical event, and the formation of the artist’s epic essay in painterly inquiry into what has befallen us.

Venter’s convulsiveness is one way, a powerful, ancient route, finally, to revelation and peace. What, in sum, are Deon Venter’s paintings? I’m going to plunder poet Frank O’Hara for the phrase – a phrase which, used anywhere close to Venter’s paintings, gains new resonance. Venter’s paintings are Meditations in an Emergency. Gary Michael Dault

 
BIOGRAPHY

Deon Venter exhibits internationally in leading contemporary fine art galleries. His work is included in permanent collections of museums, public and private collections in Canada,  USA,  UK, Germany, Switzerland and Africa.

Since 2002, Venter’s paintings have been exhibited regularly at international art fairs on three continents. His unique content, method and use of materials have stirred the interest of art collectors and critics alike. 

Venter was born in 1953 in the Eastern Cape of South Africa. He graduated from Port Elizabeth School of Art and Design in 1976. He lectured at the University of Fort Hare and the Port Elizabeth School of Art and Design, South Africa.

Venter immigrated to Canada in 1989 and lives on Saltspring Island, British Columbia. He visits South Africa regularly. His latest series include: My Mother’s Ashes/ Battlefields, (paintings of the Anglo/Boer War battlesites in their contemporary settings) – Missing / Highway of Tears (paintings of the missing and murdered women from Vancouver East Side and Highway 16) – Mythos/Logos (paintings of the symbiotic relationship between mythical and logical thinking).

SELECTED SOLO EXHIBITIONS

2016
Measuring a Life, Winchester Gallery, Victoria 

2015
Mythos/Logos, Winchester Gallery, Victoria 

2014
Battle Sites/My Mother’s Ashes, CIRCA, Johannesburg 

2013
Pyramids, Elliott Louis Gallery, Vancouver 

2011
Olympia 2, Robin Relph Contemporary, Zug, Switzerland 
Olympia 2, Robin Relph Contemporary, London, England 

2010
Missing III, Simon Fraser University inaugural exhibition Fine Art Campus 
Olympia, Galerie Orange, Montreal, Canada

2009
Highway of Tears, Buschlen Mowatt Gallery, Canada
Missing II, Buschlen Mowatt Gallery Vancouver, Canada

2008
Missing / Flight 182, Solo exhibitionToronto International Art Fair, Canada 
Missing / Flight 182, Buschlen Mowatt Gallery Vancouver, Canada

2007
The Order of Things, Buschlen Mowatt Gallery, Palm Desert, USA
Sarcophagi, William Traver Gallery, Seattle, USA

2006
New Work, Mira Godard Gallery, Toronto 
New Work,, Buschlen Mowatt Gallery, Vancouver 

2005
Parisian Laundry, Montreal, Canada
New Work, Buschlen Mowatt Gallery, Palm Desert, USA

2004
New Work, Mira Godard Gallery, Toronto
Headlines, Buschlen Mowatt Gallery, Vancouver 

2003
New Work, Ballard Lederer Gallery, Vancouver 
Founders Series, Vortex Gallery, Saltspring Island 

2002
Founders Series, Ballard Lederer Gallery, Vancouver 
Evidence Series, Vortex Gallery, Saltspring Island 

2001
Wound, Scab, Scar, Ballard Lederer Gallery, Vancouver, Canada

2000
Altars, Offerings and Sacrifices, Vortex Gallery, Saltspring Island 

1999
Under the Volcano, Vortex Gallery, Saltspring Island 

1998
Bosnian Stillife, Vortex Gallery, Saltspring Island

1997
Riders, Diane Farris Gallery, Vancouver, Canada

1996
New Work, Vortex Gallery, Saltspring Island 

1995
Extra Ecclesium Nulla Salus, Latitude 53 Gallery, Edmonton 

1994
Extra Ecclesium Nulla Salus, Vortex Gallery, Saltspring Island

1993
Shadow, Port Angeles Fine Art Center, USA

1992
New Work, Vortex Gallery, Saltspring Island 

1991
Requiem, Vortex Gallery, Saltlspring Island 

1990
New Work, Diane Farris Gallery, Vancouver 

1989
Requiem, Diane Farris Gallery, Vancouver 

1988
New Work, Gallery International, Cape Town, South Africa
New Work, University of Fort Hare, Republic of the Ciskei, South Africa 

1987
Blue Object, Gallery International, Cape Town, South Africa

1986
Extract, University of Pretoria, South Africa 
New Work, Gallery International, Cape Town, South Africa 

1985
New Work, Gallery International, Cape Town, South Africa 
Port Elizabeth School of Art and Design, South Africa

1984
Beuster Skolomowski Gallery, Pretoria, South Africa

1983
Beuster Skolomowski Gallery, Pretoria, South Africa

1982
Y-U-Vooz, Port Elizabeth Fine Arts Gallery, South Africa 

1981
Y-U-Vooz, Port Elizabeth Fine Arts Gallery, South Africa 

1980
Y-U-Vooz, Port Elizabeth Fine Arts Gallery, South Africa 

SELECTED GROUP EXHIBITIONS

2016
CIRCA Gallery, London, UK
Gallery 8, Salt Spring Island, B.C.
Winchester Galleries, Victoria, B.C

2015
Pulse, New York, USA
Winchester Galleries, Victoria, B.C
Gallery 8, Salt Spring Island, B.C.

2014
Johannesburg Art Fair, Everard Read Gallery, Johannesburg, South Africa
Everard Read Gallery, Johannesburg, South Africa
Winchester Galleries, Victoria, South Africa

2010
Art Toronto, Toronto, Canada
Extreme Painting, Galerie Orange, Montreal, Canada

2008
Buschlen Mowatt Gallery, Vancouver, Canada

2007
Palm Desert, Buschlen Mowatt Gallery

2006
Parisian Laundry, Montreal, Canada
Toronto International Art Fair, Canada
Mira Godard Gallery, Toronto, Canada
Palm Beach III, Miami International Art Fair, USA
Buschlen Mowatt Gallery

2005
Cologne International Art Fair, Germany
Buschlen Mowatt Gallery
The Armory Show, New York, USA
Mira Godard Gallery

2004
Mira Godard Gallery, Toronto, Canada
The Armory Show, New York, USA
Mira Godard Gallery
Toronto International Art Fair , Canada
Mira Godard Gallery
Buschlen Mowatt Gallery
Western Perspectives, Buschlen Mowatt Gallery, Vancouver, Canada

2003
Mira Godard Gallery, Toronto, Canada
Toronto International Art Fair, Mira Godard Gallery
Ballard Lederer Gallery, Vancouver, Canada

2002
Ballard Lederer Gallery, Vancouver, Canada
Vortex Gallery, Saltspring Island

2001
Ballard Lederer Gallery, Vancouver, Canada

2000 - 1992
Vortex Gallery, Saltspring Island

1995
Out of Canada Displaced, Latitude 53 Gallery, Edmonton 

1991
Diane Farris Gallery, Vancouver, Canada

1990
Diane Farris Gallery, Vancouver, Canada

1989
Diane Farris Gallery, Vancouver
Los Angeles International Art Fair, Diane Farris Gallery, USA

1988
University of Fort Hare, Ciskei, South Africa
Ecca, Gallery International, Cape Town, South Africa 
Ecca, Grahamstown Art Festival, South Africa 
Operation Hunger, National Gallery, Cape Town, South Africa 

1987
Gallery International, Cape Town, South Africa
Five Artists from Ciskei, Anne Bryant Gallery, East London, South Africa 
G.A.P., Port Elizabeth Town Hall, South Africa
G.A.P., Grahamstown Settlers' Monument, South Africa

1986
Everard Read Gallery, Johannesburg, South Africa
Gallery International, Cape Town, South Africa
Ecca, University of Fort Hare, Ciskei, South Africa 
Staff Exhibition, Port Elizabeth School of Art and Design 

1985
Gallery International, Cape Town, South Africa
University of Orange Free State, South Africa
Beuster Skolomowski Gallery, Pretoria, South Africa
Hans Marensky Award, University of Pretoria, South Africa 
Staff Exhibition, Port Elizabeth School of Art and Design, South Africa 

1984
G.A.P. exhibition, City Hall, Port Elizabeth, South Africa
Gallery International, Cape Town, South Africa
Staff Exhibition, Port Elizabeth School of Art and Design, South Africa 
Beuster Skolomowski Gallery, Pretoria, South Africa
National Gallery of South Africa, Cape Town

1983
Staff Exhibition, Port Elizabeth School of Art and Design, South Africa

1982
King George V Art Museum, Port Elizabeth, South Africa

1981
King George V Art Museum, Port Elizabeth, South Africa

1980
Queen Elizabeth Hotel, Port Elizabeth, South Africa

1979
Centennial Exhibition, King George V Art Museum, Port Elizabeth, South Africa

1978
King George V Art Museum, Port Elizabeth, South Africa

1977
Port Elizabeth School of Art and Design, Port Elizabeth, South Africa

COLLECTIONS
Department of External Affairs, Ottawa, Canada
Granite Club, Toronto, Canada
Harbor Green One, Vancouver
Aldo Collection, Montreal
Jacob Collection, Montreal
Michael Kedar/Eva Seidner collection, Toronto
John Le Febvre collection, Malibu
Robin Relph collection, London, UK
National Gallery, Cape Town, South Africa
South African National Museum, Pretoria, South Africa
King George V Art Museum, Port Elizabeth, South Africa
University of Fort Hare, Ciskei, South Africa
Port Elizabeth School of Art and Design, Port Elizabeth, South Africa
Hans Marensky Sculpture Award, University of Pretoria, South Africa
Numerous private and corporate collections in Canada, South Africa, UK and US