I Find You All Around Me brings together the work of South African artists Driaan Claassen and Karla Nixon in a thoughtful exhibition at THK Gallery that explores ideas of presence, perception and emotional experience.
Taking its title from a poem by the 12th-century Persian mystic Hakim Sanai, the exhibition considers how certain feelings, memories, relationships and forces continue to shape our lives even when they remain difficult to define. Rather than presenting the sublime as something distant or extraordinary, the exhibition looks at how it can be found in the spaces closest to us.
The exhibition unfolds across the gallery as a journey from fragmentation towards immersion.
Driaan Claassen transforms language into a physical experience through a sculptural installation that changes as visitors move through the space. Carefully arranged phrases appear and disappear depending on where viewers stand, revealing messages such as “you could lean on me”, “you could be wrong”, “you could be honest” and “you could love me”. Drawing on experiences of anxiety and depression, Claassen’s work invites visitors to navigate shifting emotional and psychological landscapes where meaning is never fixed.
On the upper levels of the gallery, Karla Nixon’s hand-painted torn-paper collages explore oceans, water and the natural world. Scattered phrases appear like quiet echoes across the walls, creating a sense of calm that gradually gives way to turbulence. As visitors move through the installation, the sea becomes a powerful metaphor for emotional and environmental forces that can both comfort and overwhelm.
Together, the artists create an exhibition that blurs the boundaries between self and surroundings, inner experience and external reality. Throughout the exhibition, the identity of “You” remains deliberately open. It could refer to another person, memory, grief, nature, spirituality or even aspects of ourselves that are difficult to articulate.
Rather than offering clear answers, I Find You All Around Me encourages visitors to reflect on the unseen presences that shape the way we experience the world.
