Lot 33 - Nina Mae Fowler - Tracing for a Cinema Portrait
Pencil on Tracing Paper
2023
A6 (10x15cm)
Original Artwork
Signed on Verso
Curated by Bakul Patki
ARTIST INFO
About
Drawing on source material including film stills, documentary footage, historical paparazzi and entertainment photography, Fowler’s investigation of the interplay between tragedy and beauty emerges from intricate archival research. Her drawings are weighted by tensions surrounding ridicule, self-sabotage, compulsion, victimisation, emotional and physical vulnerability, exploitation, excess and abuse, played out in complex ways and in different combinations through the prism of the camera lens and the cinema screen. As ever, Fowler’s work maintains a special ability to reverse the gaze from her subjects to her audience; the act of looking is shifted into a sometimes discomforting reflection on the frenzied voyeurism that is accountable for the cannibalistic consumption of the stars depicted. Ambiguity is bodied forth in subtle fluctuations between mesmerising material finesse and the dark undercurrents of her subject matter.
Nina Mae Fowler (b.1981) has been shortlisted for numerous prestigious prizes and awards, including the Jerwood Drawing Prize (2015 & 2010), Aesthetica Art Prize (2014), Drawing Now Award (2014), Young Masters Prize (2012) and the BP Portrait Award (2008). Her works have been exhibited internationally and are held in public collections including New, Bailliol and Magdalene Colleges (Oxford, UK), The National Portrait Gallery (London, UK) and the ‘Try-me’ collection in Richmond (Virginia, USA).
Education
2000 – 2003 Bachelor of Fine Art: Sculpture, Brighton University, East Sussex
Select Exhibitions/Awards
Upcoming Exhibitions:
2023 - Solo Exhibition, Suzanne Tarasieve, Paris
2023 - Joint exhibition with Edith Held, Artnow Gallery, Berlin
Full list of Exhibitions & Awards: www.ninamaefowler.art/pagecv
Gallery Representation
The Cob Gallery, London Suzanne Tarasieve, Paris Kalkman, Maastricht | Antwerp artnow Gallery, Berlin
Statement about AOAP Submitted Artworks
Tracings represent the remnants of my preparatory work that takes place in the planning of a developed drawing. This particular tracing comes from a ‘Cinema Portrait’, which are drawings created while the sitter enjoys their favourite film. In transferring the lead from the tracing paper to the drawing surface, I unconsciously erase eyes, lips and other defining areas, heightening the sense of mystery and chance in the portraits. Although the value and purpose of a tracing is usually throw-away, I am often drawn back to the line drawings created during this process.
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