Laughter, screams, tears, camera flashes, a great deal of blow-dries, a few fur coats. Nina Mae Fowler delves into the Hollywood archives, gathering from the internet and flea markets paparazzi photographs and on-set shots, film stills and promotional portraits — fragments that together form the matrix of her drawings. By bringing them back, by enlarging them, she continues to wear down these icons seen a thousand times over, inscribing her gesture more in the realm of distance than of appropriation. A distance between the instantaneity of the snapshot and the slow time of drawing; a distance, too, between glamour and disillusionment. For Fowler chooses moments where the image cracks, where people falter: a drunk actress, a clumsy dancer, two lovers falling out. This is neither satire nor nostalgia, but a way of reminding us of the fragility of those who carry our myths — in this case, that of cinema and its star system.

Thibault Bissirier for Gazette Drouot, 2026

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 - including Sam Mendes, Ken Loach, Nick Park and Sally Potter - which now form part of the museum’s permanent collection. 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 commentaries from an array of cultural luminaries including the curator Sandy Nairne and the playwright Polly Stenham. Her publication Ruined Finery (Cob Gallery 2020) catalogues Fowler’s drawing and sculpture practice from 2015-2020 alongside contributions from writers Alissa Bennett 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. In 2024 Fowler’s posthumous portrait of Zimbabwean writer, Dambudzo Marechera, was commissioned by Balliol College Oxford, representing the first portrait of a person of colour to be hung in the main hall since the college was founded over 700 years ago.

Her works have been exhibited internationally, including frequent solo exhibitions in London, Paris, Berlin and Leipzig, and are held in public collections including Oxford University and The National Portrait Gallery, London. In 2018, David Lynch’s establishment Silencio in Paris held a retrospective of Fowler’s work. She is included in private collections throughout Europe, the US, the Middle East and Asia. International film, art, music and fashion luminaries such as Sir Ridley Scott, Jude Law and Caroline Issa are amongst her collectors.

In 2024, Fowler was commissioned to make a series of drawings, site specific to the historic Beaumont Hotel in Maastricht. The series entitled, Sleeping Beauties, was curated by Hubert Kalkman and was the subject of a publication launched in February 2025 with a forwarding text by film historian Caroline Cassin.

She continues to live and work in Norfolk with husband Craig Wylie (painter) and their two children.

Fowler is represented by:

Suzanne Tarasieve (Paris)