Nouwen draws inspiration from images she has collected: observations from everyday life, historical and popular visual culture, optical illusions, and grotesque or humorous finds. This personal archive functions as a space for reflection, in which images are allowed to mature.
The artist initially paints meticulously from photographs sourced from the media, the internet, art history, or her personal archive. However, the original image never remains intact. Once Nouwen becomes familiar with it, she intervenes: overpainting, scratching, wiping away, or adding new elements. These interventions are not decorative but essential to her working process. Nouwen seeks to reveal the scars of creation. The paint is not smoothed over, but presented in all its forms – rough or refined, lumpy or smooth, subdued or bold.
The artist works across three media simultaneously – paper, oil on canvas and copper plate – which continually influence one another. On paper, quick notes, cut-outs and shifts emerge; it is a field for experimentation, where combinations are tested and rhythms explored. In the paintings, these elements gain scale and texture. Layers appear and disappear, traces of overpainting remain visible, and the tension between figure and background stays palpable. The copper plates, in turn, introduce reflection and slowness. The polished metal responds to light and positioning, causing perception to shift with the viewer. Here, decisions are less reversible: every intervention weighs on the final appearance.
Nouwen’s paintings do not seek to seduce through beauty or recognizability; instead, they offer resistance. Rough textures and abrupt colour contrasts disrupt any illusion of clarity. What initially appears clear becomes uncertain and blurred. The works continuously balance between figuration and abstraction, order and chaos, image and matter. Nouwen often works on several paintings concurrently – adding something here, subtracting something there.
Slow looking in a frenetic visual world
In a world of visual excess and rapidly consumable images, Nouwen invites us to look more slowly and to tolerate ambiguity. She experiments with pareidolia, optical effects, and playful – sometimes cartoonish – elements that deliberately mislead the viewer.
Her paintings do not present unambiguous images, but instead introduce doubt. Images and motifs migrate from one work to another: fragments, symbols and signs are rearranged time and again. This approach corresponds to Surrealist and Dadaist strategies, while remaining deeply rooted in art-historical tradition. Iconic, sacred and cultural images are confronted with violence, humour, sexuality and the morbid, without ever being reduced to a single, conclusive meaning.
Contradiction as a trope
These experiences are central to ‘OXOMORON’. The title implicitly refers to the concept of the oxymoron: a figure of speech in which contradictory terms are combined to produce a new, often ironic meaning.
The tension between playfulness and seriousness, structure and disruption – a recurring theme in Nouwen’s oeuvre – is clearly evident in the painting ‘OXO’ (2019–2020). Acquired by the Flemish Community in 2021 and now part of the M collection, this work serves as an important reference point within the exhibition.
‘OXO’ presents an expressive interplay of shapes, symbols and colours that evokes unexpected associations. Red peppers and shellfish appear at once playful and suggestive, generating a visual ambiguity that is characteristic of Nouwen’s practice.
With ‘OXOMORON’, M Leuven presents an artist who approaches painting as a way of thinking – physical, critical and intense. These are not comforting images, but works that continue to unsettle and sharpen the act of looking.
As Els Nouwen herself puts it: “A painting cannot and shouldn’t be comforting, because reality isn’t like that either.”
The works on paper in the exhibition will change every three months. The paintings on copper plate are presented alongside a selection from M’s collection.
Bio
Els Nouwen (b. 1968, Antwerp) lives and works in Antwerp. She studied painting at the Royal Academy of Fine Arts in Antwerp and philosophy at the University of Antwerp. This combination of technical mastery and a distinct conceptual framework is a decisive factor in her artistic practice.
Nouwen’s work has previously been exhibited at Ruimte Morguen, Behind Bars – ruimte voor kunst (2014–2024), Workplace and SECONDroom in Antwerp, Waldburger Wouters Gallery in Brussels, WARP in Sint-Niklaas and the Albert van Abbehuis in Eindhoven. Her work can be found in various public collections, including that of M Leuven.
Book ‘OXOMORON’
In conjunction with the exhibition, the eponymous book ‘OXOMORON’, Els Nouwen’s first publication, will be published, featuring contributions by Ralph Collier, Ger Groot, Leen Huet, and Rudi Salomon. The book offers a glimpse into Nouwen’s recent oeuvre and demonstrates how her work slows down the act of looking and reveals new connections. ‘OXOMORON’ is published by M and costs €30-€27 at Barbóék in M.
