After de Jongh brings together a selection of works that respond to that of Dutch-born South African artist Tinus de Jongh (1885 – 1942) – a defining figure within the landscape painting genre and whose pastoral scenes found particular resonance among Afrikaner audiences throughout the early to mid-20th century. Having intimately experienced the landscapes depicted by de Jongh from childhood, van der Merwe’s abstract paintings emerge as a dialogue where past experience meets present interpretation. Emerging from memory and expressed as visceral response on canvas, the gestural and blurred brushstrokes of richly layered colours suggest movement and depth, amplifying the evocative and affective nature of oil paint. At the same time, in these renditions of traditional visual motifs, van der Merwe confronts pressing culturally significant themes of land ownership and patrimony, as well as dispossession and expropriation within post-Apartheid South Africa.