Densham has developed a visual language that embraces the ephemeral. He lives in
New Zealand, a country with spectacular glaciers, picturesque fiords, rugged
mountains, vast plains, rolling hillsides, subtropical forests and volcanoes. It has
been said that four seasons can exist in one day. Living in this environment, it’s not
surprising that his paintings are implied and malleable. When contemplating
landscape painting in these terms the artist describes a definition of the word Vista
that relates particularly well with the process of a painting as it develops. It reads..
An extensive mental view (as over a stretch of time or a series of events.)
‘Slowing down, relooking, coming back to, helps to internalize a landscape and a
painting practice’. These works encapsulate a palimpsest of decisions over time. The
aim is to give the viewer a sense of an ever-changing psychological landscape.
With respect to the relationship between abstraction and figuration Densham says,
‘The marks are both independent gestures but also acknowledge the brain's
tendency to search for representation. I’m looking for this middle ground, to confound
the space somehow through the interchange of revealing and concealing.'