James Lucian de Villiers

Born 10 March 1954 in Pietermaritzburg, KwaZulu-Natal., South Africa

James de Villiers, based in Johannesburg, is a mainly self-taught artist having undergone periods of art studies at Unisa and the Free State Technikon in the 1970s.

Greatly inspired by his mother who was a keen amateur painter, he became interested in art at the age of 12.

With a background in the printing industry as a photolithographer and process engraver, he followed many work paths as retail display artist, advertising, magazine, book and graphic designer, illustrator, theatrical props maker, DJ, electronic music experimentalist and newspaper infographic artist. During this time he was also an active fine artist and ran several of his own experimental galleries.

De Villiers's first exhibition was a one-person show in 1985 at the Market Gallery in Newtown, Johannesburg.

He was responsible for the organisation and hosting of the Fringe exhibitions of the first Africus Biennale in 1995.

In 2014 de Villiers started artmaking on a fulltime basis. He works with realism and abstraction creating mixed media drawings, oil and acrylic paintings and silkscreened artworks. His artworks are in many collections in South Africa and abroad.

De Villiers's work is a meditation on the state of nature, it's entropy and regeneration, ecology and "making the invisible forces of nature visible". He is equally influenced by the growth and decay of plants in a garden and the discoveries of the James Webb Telescope and the Large Hadron Collider.

"To see a World in a Grain of Sand

And a Heaven in a Wild Flower,

Hold Infinity in the palm of your hand

And Eternity in an hour."

William Blake - Auguries of Innocence

Exhibitions

At present most of De Villiers's artwork is exhibited and sold online.

2025 November: "Akwande Ukukhanya" (Let it be Light) group exhibition at the Spaza Art Gallery in Troyeville, Johannesburg.
2023 Abstractions. Solo exhibition at the Gordart Stokvel Gallery, 27 Boxes. Melville, Johannesburg. Sept 22 -25.
2023 Latitudes Online group exhibition: LAND // sites of (be)longing. 5 April to 17 May.
2023 Latitudes Online group exhibition: REVERB 23 Abstract Resonances // Contemporary Voices from 8th Feb to 24th of Mar.
2022 Group Exhibition StateoftheART Gallery, Cape Town.
2021 July-Aug: Affordable Art Fair 2021 at EDG2020 Gallery, Kyalami, Johannesburg. Awarded second prize for Vortex, a multimedia screenprinted work on paper.
2020 Exhibited and sold artworks online.
2019 onwards: Exhibited paintings at The Pencil Art Foundation in Umhlanga, KwaZulu-Natal
2018 July: Group show at White River Gallery, Mpumalanga, titled "Na die Maal" (After the Meal)
2018 May. Paintings exhibited at StateoftheART Gallery, Cape Town
2018 April onwards. Group exhibition at The Art of Silver Gallery in Cullinan
2017 11 Feb-12 March "Untitled" group exhibition at the Moor Gallery Franschhoek
2017 Jan 7- Feb 5 "Genre" group exhibition at the Moor Gallery Franschhoek
2016 "Ephemeral Pleasures" group exhibition at the Moor Gallery Franschhoek
2016 August- Oct: "Muse Montage" group exhibition at Eclectica Design and Art
2016 July: A pastel painting titled "After the Battle" accepted by the Delville Wood Memorial Museum in the Somme, France
2016 July 7-23 Group exhibition Scapes: Rhythms of an environment at StateoftheART Gallery, Cape Town
2016 June: Group exhibition at Halifax Art Gallery in Parkhurst, Johannesburg
2016 May 5: Optical Diversions, a group exhibition at Eclectica Design and Art Gallery, Cape Town
2016 January: Executed a commission to do a series of skies for a client of The Gavin Project.
2015 Exhibited works at Gavin Project, Arts on Main, Maboneng, Johannesburg.
2015 September. Rogue Art 1 group exhibition at Carfax, Johannesburg
2015 July. Studio exhibition at Carfax to open the artist's new studio.
2013 October Solo exhibition: “Decay Transfigured” at Gallery on 6th in Parkhurst, Johannesburg.
2013 Group show at Gallery on 6th in Parkhurst, Johannesburg.
2011 Group show “Altered Pieces” at the Thompson Gallery
2010 March: Solo exhibition “Earth & Sky” at Right on the Rim at Arts on Main in Johannesburg.
2009 Participated in GTZ International Photographic workshop and exhibition, “Diversity, the impulse for development”. Johannesburg and Pretoria.
2009 “War and Hate” group exhibition at Right on the Rim, Arts on Main, Johannesburg
2006 “Nature Morte” a solo exhibition at the Gordart gallery in Melville, Johannesburg
2005 March 11 - 18: Solo exhibition “Earth & Sky” at the Gerard Sekoto Gallery, Alliance Francaise, Johannesburg
2005 January 16 - February 9: Exhibition “Forty Hand painted Pictures” at Gordart Gallery
2004 Exhibited on group shows at Gordart Gallery, Melville “For the Record/Off the Record”. Organised and performed in “Mayday Experimental music evening” at Gordart.
2004 Exhibited in Christmas Miniature show Gordart Gallery
1999 Participated in group exhibition touring Mexico and the US, “Transmigrations 1999”
1998 Participated in group show, "Buttons” at the Civic Gallery, Johannesburg
1997 The Beat Hotel Carfax, Newtown, Johannesburg
Eurovirus #1, 2 & 3 exhibitions at Carfax, Newtown, Johannesburg
1997 Participated as an artist in Jahn Beukes’ “Group Spiral” music production
1996 “Landscapes”, two man show with Pieter Swanepoel at Gallery Palette, Pretoria Art Gallery
1995 Curators Choice Exhibition, Rembrandt Gallery, Johannesburg
1994 “Biting The Ballot”, Rembrandt Gallery, Johannesburg
1994 Group Show at the ICA, Johannesburg
1993 Solo exhibition at the Long Gallery, S A Association of Arts Gallery, Cape Town
1993 Johannesburg Corporate Art, a group show at the Artists Co-Operative, Midrand
1993 Group Show, Newtown Galleries, Johannesburg
1993 Alternative Photographic Print Workshop, University Witwatersrand and the ICA with Bob Cnoops
1993 “Drawing with light”, group show, ICA, Johannesburg
1993 Group Show, Anti-Gravity Gallery, Rosebank, Johannesburg
1992 Usable Art, Institute of Contemporary Art (ICA), Johannesburg
1992 Exhibition/demonstration at the annual South African Art Historians Conference, UNISA, Pretoria
1992 101 Miniatures, ICA, Johannesburg
1992 “Made in August” exhibition at the Newtown Galleries, Johannesburg
1991 Kempton Park Art Competition, overall and category winner
1985 First Solo exhibition at the Market Theatre Gallery, Newtown, Johannesburg

The Art of James de Villiers

I explore the hidden structures that shape the visible world. Working between abstraction and realism, my paintings arise from close observation of nature while drawing on ideas from cosmology, particle physics, ecology and contemplative philosophy. Rather than illustrating scientific concepts, they seek visual equivalents for the forces, rhythms and uncertainties that underlie lived experience.

My practice begins with careful observation. A fading flower, tangled branches, weathered stone or the changing light of the sky become points of departure for a broader investigation into transformation. The same processes of growth, decay and renewal that unfold in a garden are reflected, at vastly different scales, in the evolution of stars, galaxies and the subatomic world. Entropy is not presented as loss alone, but as the continual process through which new forms emerge.

The discoveries of the Large Hadron Collider, the James Webb Space Telescope and contemporary cosmology have expanded my understanding of nature's complexity. These scientific perspectives are complemented by Zen and ancient Indian cosmology, both of which view reality as dynamic, interconnected and continually unfolding. Together they encourage an approach that moves beyond appearances towards the relationships that bind all phenomena.

Whether working in oil, acrylic or screenprint, I balance structure with spontaneity. Layers, textures and gestural marks create surfaces that suggest both organic growth and invisible fields of energy, allowing order and unpredictability to exist together. My realist paintings and abstract works are not separate pursuits but complementary ways of exploring the same questions.

Rather than offering fixed explanations, these paintings invite contemplation. They ask viewers to move between the microscopic and the cosmic, between observation and imagination, and to recognise that the patterns shaping the universe are also present in the smallest details of everyday life. In that meeting of science, nature and reflection, the work becomes less a description of the world than an invitation to experience its interconnectedness with renewed curiosity.

About

James Lucian de Villiers

Exhibitions​

Artist Statement

The Art of James de Villiers

Exhibitions