Els Nouwen’s work is hard to pin down. Her paintings typically begin with a photographic image, either from the media, art history or her personal archive, that she transfers to canvas with great technical precision. However, just when it seems settled, the disruption begins.
Els Nouwen
Foto: Josefien Tondeleir voor M Leuven
Els Nouwen
Els Nouwen (b. 1968) lives and works in Antwerp. She studied painting at the Royal Academy of Fine Arts in Antwerp and philosophy at the University of Antwerp.
Previous exhibitions include Ruimte Morguen, Behind Bars – ruimte voor kunst (2014-2024), Workplace and SECONDroom in Antwerp, Waldburger Wouters Gallery in Brussels, WARP in Sint-Niklaas and Albert van Abbehuis in Eindhoven, among others.
Her work can be found in public collections, including M Leuven, for which the Flemish Community purchased ‘OXO’ (2019-2020) in 2021.
Nouwen overpaints, scratches, wipes away, or adds. Rough textures and abrupt colour contrasts disrupt the illusion of recognition. Her paintings hover between figuration and abstraction, between order and chaos, between image and material.
In an era of visual saturation and polished imagery, Nouwen unveils the ragged seams of perception. She invites us to look slowly, to tolerate ambiguity. Her work demonstrates how quickly we assign meaning, and how little certainty that offers.
Els Nouwens’ paintings are as raw as they are refined. They do not speak in explanations but in tension. To look is to participate: viewers become witnesses to actions that continue to move, long after the canvas is finished.
For this exhibition, Els Nouwen made a personal selection from M’s collection. Rather than relying on art-historical categories, she follows her own way of looking: intuitive and associative, shaped by images that move and unsettle her.
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