Cape Town, South Africa — The Artists Gallery proudly presents CONFLUX, a dual exhibition featuring the celebrated South African artists Ruan Jooste and Natasha Barnes. Opening on 14 November 2025 at 33BREE, Cape Town, and running until 13 December 2025, this exhibition brings together two distinctive voices in contemporary South African art whose works explore transformation, emotion, and connection through contrasting yet complementary visual languages.

For Ruan Jooste, CONFLUX is anchored in the metaphor of floodwaters — forces that are both destructive and renewing, chaotic yet cleansing. His latest body of work examines what it means to stand firm while the world shifts around you, inspired by the resilience he sees in South Africans who rebuild, adapt, and find beauty amid loss. “We live in a place where loss and beauty often coexist,” Jooste says. “These works are about standing tall in shifting waters, carrying our histories, our humour, and our humanity.”

His portraits, vivid and intricately layered, balance nostalgia and surrealism, portraying figures dressed in bold fabrics, each accompanied by symbolic objects — a crocodile, a suitcase, a memory. These works invite multiple interpretations and personal reflections. “I’m less interested in telling a single story,” he adds, “and more in creating a space where multiple truths can coexist, just as they do in South Africa itself.”

In conversation with Jooste’s symbolic realism, Natasha Barnes presents her new series, an abstract exploration of connection and transience. Her works evoke the haunting beauty of fleeting encounters — the moments when strangers and places brush against one another “like passing ships in the night.” With her characteristic blend of intuition and energy, Barnes translates solitude, longing, and nostalgia into layered compositions that capture both vastness and intimacy. “I want visitors to feel a sense of peace and nostalgia for a slower, quieter era,” she explains. “The works recall open spaces, both organic and geometric — a desert of broken dreams that shaped us, even as we passed through it unknowingly.”

Together, Jooste and Barnes form a dialogue of opposites and affinities: figuration meeting abstraction, narrative intersecting with emotion. Both artists explore the delicate balance between fragility and strength, inviting viewers to reflect on how connection, memory, and resilience shape the human experience.

Each has already enjoyed critical success with major solo exhibitions — Natasha Barnes from Japan to the United States, and Ruan Jooste in prominent galleries in South Africa. CONFLUX marks their first extensive show at 33BREE, offering audiences a unique opportunity to experience their work in one exceptional venue.

"It is a privilege to host this exhibition," says Jaret Loggenberg, Managing Director of The Artists Gallery. "CONFLUX unites two remarkable artists whose practices embody both individuality and harmony. Through their different approaches, both artists capture the essence of transformation — of finding beauty and balance within the flux of life. We are incredibly proud to present this dual exhibition in Cape Town."