Inez De Brauw
Paragon Properties
2020
Acrylic Paint on Wooden Panels, Fineliner, SilkScreened Paper,
Threads
200 x 400 cm
Inez de Brauw was born in 1989 in Amsterdam. She received her BFA with honours in 2014 from Hogeschool Voor de Kunsten Utrecht and then studied at Rijksakademie van beeldende Kunsten, Amsterdam from 2016-2017. De Brauw has been included in several exhibitions, most recently in Lost and Found in Paradis hosted by ARTUNER in Paris (October 2019), Cargo in Context by Van hout en de Dingen die voorbij gaan in Amsterdam (August 2019) and Trouble in Paradise of Kunsthal Rotterdam (February 2019.) De Brauw has been nominated for multiple awards including Royal Award for Modern Painting in 2018, where she was also exhibited at Exhibition Royal Award for Modern Painting (Amsterdam). In addition, de Brauw has received numerous grants, her most recent being the Stipend for Emerging Artists from Mondriaanfonds in 2018. De Brauw currently works and lives in Amsterdam.
Throughout her work, de Brauw is fascinated with the domestic space. Using interior design catalogues as inspiration, the artist’s paintings challenge the viewer to fully recognise ordinary objects, the presence and abundance of which are usually taken for granted due to today’s advertising culture. A questioning of domesticity and the subject of the home come into play as de Brauw's work focuses mainly on the staged rooms of the lifestyle magazine, only created to sell the furniture shown. The artist also questions the concept of “cultural symbols” by noticing the constantly shifting ideas and statuses given to different objects. For example, by keeping each scene devoid of human life (even though each aspect shown is man made), the furniture earns a new importance as it adopts centre stage. Yet, de Brauw states that “I used a lot of nature inspired (mass produced) furniture” as “references to nature in (model)houses are growing exponentially”, just as contact with nature itself becomes increasingly hard due to urbanisation. So, ideas of nature within the man-made home come into play with each other, adding another dimension of contradictions and similarities to be contemplated. Additionally, she discusses the loss of historical specificity of the object as it floats within the work, relating this idea back to the continuous altering of concepts that is assigned to each ‘figure.’
Inez de Brauw's ideas are furthered by her technique. De Brauw paints mostly on polyptychs and encourages the viewer-owner to reshuffle the panels in order to create a new painting. By doing this, de Brauw reimagines the role of the polyptych, a usually static composition, into an extremely dynamic and interactive aspect of the artwork. By reordering the panels, the artist (or the owner of the work) is able to create changing and reimagined interpretations of the original spaces. The images flow in and out of figuration and abstraction, as some repeat while others can never be seen fully, creating a kaleidoscope effect in the works. The artist also uses the ancient technique of ebru (water marbling), plaster and collage; the choice to handle such fragile mediums mirrors the artist’s decision to analyse equally fragile topics within her pieces. De Brauw fills her paintings with these contradictions and repetitions to create a dreamlike mise en abyme in which each aspect adds to the painting’s sense of being adrift from historical specificity.
Courtesy of art artuner.com