26 june 2025, Emily Van Driessen
Sensuous Material Intelligence: The very last exhibition at Fons Welters
With the group exhibition 1985 – 2025, Galerie Fons Welters bids farewell to nearly four decades at the heart of Amsterdam’s contemporary art scene. What began in 1988 in a former garage in the Jordaan evolved into a key space for artists to experiment and grow across a wide range of practices. Over the years, the gallery has supported artists such as Erik van Lieshout, Gabriel Lester, and Evelyn Taocheng Wang, providing fertile ground for their development.
Amidst the multitude of voices in this group show, one particular tension stands out: a sensuous material intelligence: the subtle, tactile understanding through which materials themselves become carriers of meaning. Below, we highlight three artists who channel this knowledge in strikingly sensory ways: Evelyn Taocheng Wang, Adriano Amaral, and Magali Reus.
Evelyn Taocheng Wang
Evelyn Taocheng Wang (b. 1981, China) is a multidisciplinary artist based in Rotterdam. Trained in both traditional Chinese painting and Western art academies, she has developed a hybrid practice that fuses identity, desire, cultural migration and sensuous material expression. Her work blends painting, calligraphy, text, and performance into a poetic and politically charged visual language.
Evelyn Taocheng Wang, Frog-Princess Flies into Diamond Ruby, 2025, Galerie Fons Welters
In Frog-Princess Flies into Diamond Ruby (2025), we encounter a dreamlike scene rendered in gesso, oil and pencil. The body becomes ornament; the ornament, body. The surface of the work is porous, layered, and fragile. Both cultural (and autobiographical) references merge with alter egos throughout her work. She often works with feminine fairy tale figures (Cinderella, Geisha, Frog-Princess) as vehicles for reflecting on cultural projection, gender, and self-image.
Wang uses motifs such as rubies and diamonds as symbols of transformation, femininity, and ritual power. These references are reinforced by what she embodies as a sensuous material intelligence, an attuned, almost intuitive sensitivity to surface and texture.
Adriano Amaral
In this exhibition, Brazilian artist Adriano Amaral (b. 1982, Brazil) presents a work from his Prosthetic Painting Series: an frog-like creature bathes a child by the water’s edge. His process often begins with a smartphone image (a photo or screenshot) which he translates into a relief using silicone and pigment.
Adriano Amaral, Prole (Prosthetic Painting series), 2023, Galerie Fons Welters
These Prosthetic Paintings resemble small landscapes: at once clinical and fairytale-like. Their silicone frames are soft and tactile; the imagery appears almost holographic. Materials evoke close-ups of water or skin, shimmering and wrinkled, assuming an almost fictional identity of their own.
Magali Reus
Magali Reus (b. 1981, Netherlands) is known for her sculptures that mimic functional objects (e.g. fire hoses, racks, hooks) while simultaneously undermining their functional nature. Her Sentinel series resembles mechanical wall structures, yet behaves more like living organisms.
Magali Reus, Sentinel (Serif), 2018, Galerie Fons Welters
Her work brings together industrial production methods, craft techniques and semi-familiar forms. Sentinel (Serif) (2018) reveals a refined sensitivity to surface, weight and texture. The wall-mounted 'carriers' resemble tree stumps, while at the centre of the work, a small tree is subtly embedded within the composition. Embroidered ribbons drape downward, almost like hanging vines.
The fabrics used, including viscose and cotton, are of plant-based origin. Viscose, for example, is made from wood pulp. This creates a subtle, poetic link between the seemingly industrial nature of the piece and the tree-like carriers on which it rests.
Sensuous Material Intelligence
What binds these three artists is their shared interest in creating images that resist easy comprehension, where tactility and subtlety become ways of thinking and making. The exhibition runs until 26 July 2025. After that, Galerie Fons Welters will close its doors for good.
1985-2025, Galerie Fons Welters
