Galerie Nathalie Obadia is pleased to present a solo exhibition by Belgian artist Sophie Kuijken in Brussels, bringing together a selection of recent paintings, several of which were featured in her major retrospective at the Centre d’art contemporain Matmut – Daniel Havis in France until February 2026. The exhibition also introduces a renewed exploration of the tondo, a circular format that Kuijken first experimented with some twenty years ago and has recently rediscovered for its compositional possibilities. A graduate of the Royal Academy of Fine Arts in Ghent (KASK) in 1988, Kuijken spent more than two decades working away from the public eye, developing an autonomous and distinctive pictorial language before her work was presented to a wider audience in 2011 at the Dhondt-Dhaenens Museum.

The works on view reflect Kuijken’s longstanding fascination with portraiture, while challenging the conventions of the genre. Rather than working from live models, she constructs her enigmatic figures from images collected online over many years, dissecting, altering and recombining fragments such as faces, hands, clothing and gestures. The resulting portraits occupy an ambiguous space between familiarity and strangeness, with subtle dissonances emerging through unexpected combinations of bodies, poses and historical references. Her renewed interest in the tondo further connects this enduring pictorial tradition, rooted in Antiquity and the Renaissance, with contemporary visual culture and the circular framing of digital profile images. Presented at eye level, Kuijken’s figures create a quiet, intimate encounter with the viewer, inviting us to reflect on how we construct, perceive and remember the world around us.