The Muse Withdraws | Inez de Brauw

Inez de Brauw, Between framed lines, 2025, 155 x 180 cm, oil and acrylic paint on canvas

Galerie Fontana Amsterdam warmly invites you to the opening of the first solo exhibition of Inez de Brauw @ Fontana. The exhibition officially opens on Saturday 6 September from 16:00 to 18:00, and can also be visited during Gallery Night on Friday 5 September from 17:00 to 20:00.

In The Muse Withdraws, De Brauw turns to the 17th-century genre of Gallery paintings—richly detailed works teeming with other paintings, originating in the Low Countries. Within these paintings-within-paintings—a form of mise en abyme—she searches for the women: the muses. Their presence, gaze, and role are re-examined, alongside the subtle codes that surround them: from precious objects rooted in exploitation to painted lapdogs signifying decorum, status, and chastity.

The works are formally inspired by historical revisionism: erasing, blurring, and overpainting are approached as acts of revising history. Figures step forward or dissolve from view; roles are inverted. The privilege of appearing within the frame, and the power to dictate who may appear within it, are called into question. The balance shifts between creator and muse, between the personal and the political, as familiar scenes are tacitly rewritten. What remains is a play of gazes and meanings, where beauty and power alternate—and the muse slowly withdraws, poised to assume a new role.

Inez de Brauw, Camparse – Image seize, 2025, 160 x 200 cm, oil and acrylic paint on canvas, resin

ABOUT THE ARTIST
Inez de Brauw (1989, The Hague) is a visual artist based in Amsterdam. She graduated cum laude with a Bachelor of Fine Arts from HKU Utrecht in 2014. In 2016 and 2017, she was an artist-in-residence at the Rijksakademie in Amsterdam, alongside residencies at EKWC (NL, 2022), Vermont Studio Center (US, 2023), Golden Foundation (US, 2024), and LIA (DE, 2024). De Brauw’s work has been exhibited at Kunsthal Rotterdam, Artericambi Gallery in Verona (Italy), Archiv Massiv in Leipzig (Germany), SBK Amsterdam, Art Rotterdam, among many other venues. Her work is held in various collections, including ING, AMC, Eneco, KPMG, De Nederlandsche Bank, and the NN Group. She has been nominated for numerous awards: in 2017 she received the Young Talent Award from the Prins Bernhard Cultuurfonds, in 2018 she was nominated for the Koninklijke Prijs voor Vrije Schilderkunst, and in 2022 she won the NN Publieksprijs Beeldende Kunst. De Brauw has received multiple grants, most recently the Basic Grant from the Mondriaan Fund (2023).

Throughout her practice, Inez de Brauw explores a fascination with the objectification of time-bound discourses. Her recent paintings draw upon historical Gallery paintings, deploying the act of painting itself as a means to interrogate historical revisionism. Erasing, blurring, and overpainting function here as acts of revising historical imagery. Earlier works, inspired by period trends in interior design and art history, focus on ideals of the good life while questioning the desires that specific trends evoke and reinforce.