Nina Mae Fowler British, b. 1981

View works. Hanging Marlene, 2017, Pencil and graphite on paper 293 x 96 cmHanging Marlene, 2017, Pencil and graphite on paper 293 x 96 cm
Hanging Marlene, 2017, Pencil and graphite on paper 293 x 96 cmHanging Marlene, 2017, Pencil and graphite on paper 293 x 96 cm
View works

b. London, lives and works in Norfolk, UK 

 

Nina Mae Fowler's drawing and sculpture practice conceptually centres on a restless investigation into the often devastating effects of fame, focusing on the impossible spotlight and perilous underbelly of the Hollywood machine. Sustaining her infectious interest in cinema - from it's golden age to the modern day - Fowler revels in cinema's sheer visual richness and takes a cool-headed look at its sometimes lurid inner workings. Steeped in both the glamour and grotesquery of stardom, Fowler's sumptuous, and often large drawings ask us to bring a mortician’s scalpel to the immaculately made-up corpse of celebrity culture.

Drawing on source material including film stills, documentary footage, historical paparazzi and entertainment photography, Nina Mae Fowler's drawings and sculpture investigate the interplay between tragedy and beauty emerging 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 through the prism of the camera lens and 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.

 

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.
 
In 2019, Fowler was awarded a major commission for The National Portrait Gallery. Entitled ‘Luminary Drawings’, the series comprises nine portraits of leading British Film Directors which now form part of the museums permanent collection, including Sam Mendes, Ken Loach, Nick Park and Sally Potter. 
 
Since her nomination for the BP Portrait Prize in 2008, Fowler’s work has won widespread acclaim. It is featured in numerous collections of international significance and in 2015 a monograph of her work entitled Measuring Elvis was published by Cob Gallery, London. The book features a commentary from an array of cultural luminaries including the curator Sandy Nairne and the playwright Polly Stenham. Her most recent publication Ruined Finery (Cob Gallery 2020) catalogues Fowler's drawing and sculpture practice from 2015-2020 alongside contributions from writers Alissa Bennet, Olivia Cole and Dame Marina Warner.
 
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). Past commissions have included portraits of evolutionary biologist Professor Richard Dawkins and biographer Dame Hermione Lee. Her works have been exhibited internationally, including frequent solo exhibitions in London, Paris and Leipzig, 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, a public foundation in Richmond (Virginia, USA). In 2018, David Lynch’s establishment Silencio in Paris held a retrospective of Fowler’s work. She is included in private and public collections throughout Europe, the US, the Middle East and Asia. 
 
Nina Mae Fowler graduated in Fine Art Sculpture from Brighton University in 2003.  Selected solo exhibitions include Nina Mae Fowler, Galerie Suzanne Tarasieve, Paris, France (2023); Luminary Drawings, National Portrait Gallery, London, UK (2019); If You Don’t Want My Peaches (You Better Stop Shaking The Tree), Cob Gallery, London, UK (2019); Who Wants To See A Dame Go Blind, Artnow Gallery, Berlin, Germany (2018); Death Takes A Holiday, Silencio, Paris, France (2018); While I’m Still Warm, Cob Gallery, London, UK (2017); The Lure of Collapse, Galerie Dukan, Leipzig, Germany (2014); That’s Right Mister…And How Is Your FairyTale Coming Along?, Cob Gallery, London, UK (2013) It’s Just My Funny Way of Dancing: Parts I-XIII, Lazarides, London, UK (2011); A Real Allegory: Parts I & II, Dukan Hourdequin, Paris, France (2011); Valentino’s Funeral, Dukan Hourdequin, Lyon, France (2009); Selected group exhibitions include De Anima, Nina Mae Fowler x Casper Sejersen, Cob Gallery, London, UK (2020); NEW WORK PART III: SUBJECT, Cob Gallery, London, UK (2018); White on White, Melissa Morgan Fine Art, Palm Springs, USA (2016); Starke Frauen, Neuer Kunstverein Aschaffenburg, Germany (2013); Artists of the Colony Room (1948- 2008), England & Co, London, UK (2014);  Face Value, Contémporary by Angela Li, Hong Kong (2012).

 

EDUCATION

2003 BA Fine Art Sculpture, Brighton University, Brighton, UK

 

MUSEUM EXHIBITIONS

2020-2021, COMING HOME: Sir Ridley Scott in partnership with The National Portrait Gallery London, Laing Art Gallery, Newcastle, UK

2020 Drawing WOW,  Curated by Anna Gille, Philip Loersch and Tim Plamper, Kunstsaele Berlin, Germany
2019 Luminary Drawings, National Portrait Gallery, London, UK

2013 Starke Frauen, Neuer Kunstverein Aschaffenburg, Germany

 

SOLO EXHIBITIONS

2023 Just a little piece of leather, stripped off the skin of life, Galerie Suzanne Tarasieve, Paris, France

2019 Luminary Drawings, National Portrait Gallery, London, UK
2019 If You Don’t Want My Peaches (You Better Stop Shaking The Tree), Cob Gallery, London, UK
2018 Who Wants To See A Dame Go Blind?, Artnow Gallery, Berlin, Germany
2018 Death Takes a Holiday, Silencio, Paris, France
2017 While I’m Still Warm, Cob Gallery, London, UK
2017 The Day Cary Came To Norwich, The Fairhurst Gallery, Norwich, UK
2015 Measuring Elvis: Nina Mae Fowler, Cob Gallery, London, UK
2015 Nina Fowler Selected Works, Dadiani Fine Art, London, UK
2014 The Art School, Cob Gallery, Liverpool, UK
2014 She Shoulda Said No, Drawing Now FRESH, Cob Gallery, Paris, France
2014 The Lure of Collapse, Galerie Dukan, Leipzig, Germany
2013 That’s Right Mister....?, Cob Gallery, London, UK
2013 It’s Just My Funny Way of Dancing, 18 Hewett St, London, UK
2013 Intimate Strangers, Art13, Galerie Dukan, London, UK
2011 It’s Just My Funny Way of Dancing: Parts I-XIII, Lazarides, London, UK
2011 A Real Allegory: Parts I & II, Dukan Hourdequin, Paris, France
2009 Valentino’s Funeral, Dukan Hourdequin, Lyon, France

 

GROUP EXHIBITIONS

2023 Nina Mae Fowler and Edith Held, artnow gallery, Berlin, Germany

2022 Artist Mothers & Other Parents, TJ Boulting, London, UK

2022 Art Now or Never, artnow Gallery, Berlin, Germany

2020 De Anima, Nina Mae Fowler x Casper Sejersen, Cob Gallery, London, UK

2020, Picture Palace, works on paper by over 100 artists, Transition Gallery, London, UK

2018 NEW WORK PART III: SUBJECT, Cob Gallery, London, UK
2017 UNSEEN - Between Worlds, artnow Gallery, Hamburg, Germany
2017 Mystery Portrait Postcards, National Portrait Gallery, London, UK
2017 Under Influence, curated by Michaela K. Kühn, Galerie Dukan, Leipzig, Germany

2016 White on White, Melissa Morgan Fine Art, Palm Springs, USA
2016 SEVEN, Artnow Gallery, Berlin, Germany

2016 Drawn, curated by Guy Noble, UCH Hospital, London, UK
2015 The Contemporary Classic, Cob Gallery at 10 Castle Street, Dorset, UK
2014 Pastiche, Parody & Piracy, Cob Gallery, London, UK
2014 Artists of the Colony Room (1948- 2008), England & Co, London, UK
2014 Mystery Portrait Postcards, National Portrait Gallery, London, UK
2013 In Dreams, Cob Gallery, London, UK
2012 Savorr VIII, Savorr Collective, Norwich, UK

2012 Sex and Death, Guts for Garters, London, UK
2012 Hors Les Murs, Drawing Now, Paris, France
2012 Face Value, Contémporary by Angela Li, Hong Kong
2011 Anatomy, Guts For Garters, Cob Gallery, London, UK

2011 Young Masters, Sphynx Fine Arts, London, UK
2010 Winter Exhibition, Lazarides, London, UK
2010 New Entries, Dukan Hourdequin, Marseille, France
2009 Mystery Portrait Postcards, National Portrait Gallery, London, UK
2008 Soho Society, Lazarides Gallery, London, UK
2008 Don’t Stop Me Now – The Body Beyond Death, Trolley Gallery, London, UK

 

AWARDS
2019 Contemporary Drawing Commission, National Portrait Gallery, London, UK

2016 ING The Discerning Eye Drawing Bursary Award (shortlist)
2015 Jerwood Drawing Prize (shortlist)
2014 Aesthetica Art Prize (longlist)
2014 DRAWING NOW Award (shortlist)
2012 The Young Masters Prize (shortlist) 2010 Jerwood Drawing Prize (shortlist) 2008 BP Portrait Prize (shortlist)

 

ART FAIRS

2022 Drawing Now, Galerie Suzanne Tarasieve, Paris, France

2021 POSITIONS Art Fair, artnow Gallery, Berlin, Germany

2018 Drawing Now, Cob Gallery, Paris, France

2018 Silencio, Cob Gallery, Paris, France

2017 Drawing Now Paris, Galerie Dukan, Paris, France
2016 The Art Car Boot Fair (solo), London, UK
2015 The Art Car Boot Fair (solo), London, UK

2014 The Art Car Boot Fair (solo) London, Liverpool Biennial, Folkestone, UK

2014 Drawing Now FRESH (solo), The Cob Gallery, Paris, France
2013 Intimate Strangers, Art13, Galerie Dukan, London, UK
2013 Art Miami, Cynthia Courbett, USA

2013 Art13 (solo), Galerie Dukan, London, UK
2012 Drawing Now (Hors Les Murs), Dukan Hourdequin, Paris, France

2012 Contemporary Istanbul, Dukan Hourdequin, Turkey
2011 Scope, Dukan Hourdequin, New York, USA
2011 Drawing Now, Dukan Hourdequin, Paris, France
2010 Drawing Now, Dukan Hourdequin, Paris, France
2010 Scope, Dukan Hourdequin, Basel, Switzerland
2009 Dock’s Art Fair (solo), Dukan Hourdequin, Lyon, France

 

PUBLIC COLLECTIONS

Colección Al Limite, Santiago, Chile

Bailliol College, Oxford University, UK

Fondation Francès, France

National Portrait Gallery, London, UK
Try-Me Collection, Richmond, Virginia, USA

Imagi Mundo, Luciano Bennetton Collection, Italy

Assante International
Groucho Club, London, UK
Soho House Collection, Global
New College, Oxford, UK
Magdalene College, Oxford, UK
Hanover Grange, Jamaica