Sabrina Dufrasne appropriates ancient visual languages in new exhibition at Kewenig

The relation between humans and animals was once one of proximity, a shared world of glances, gestures, and unspoken recognition. With the rise of modern capitalism, this closeness has been progressively dismantled. Animals have been removed from everyday life and absorbed into systems of production, consumption, and display—transformed into commodities, spectacles, and images. In 'Why Look at Animals?', John Berger reflects on this transformation, describing a subtle but profound rupture: animals are no longer encountered as sentient counterparts but are instead objectified, managed, and consumed within an economic order that prioritizes efficiency and profit over relation. In 'Un monde à part', the Belgian painter Sabrina Dufrasne (b. 1976, Braine-L'alleud) opens a space that belongs first to the animals themselves, resisting this logic of commodification. Her paintings draw on the formal vocabulary of Etruscan tomb frescoes: flat planes of saturated colour, ornamental borders,