Joyce van den Engel (1976) is a self-taught artist, living in Amsterdam.
"My work is characterized by a combination of expressionism and fine art. An important theme in my work is stark contrasts, often shaped by the play of light and shadow. For instance, during a hot summer day you can look at a big chestnut tree. The space beneath the tree, the shadow, can be incredibly dark, while the rest of the tree is very bright. The fact that they are co-dependent is extremly fascinating to me.
Different mediums are important to me. In the past it was predominantly oil paint, but now it's mostly acrylics, colored pencils and collage techniques. Only recently, since 2020, I started working with colored pencils. I am simply in love with them, because of the options this medium offers and how you can use them. It feels a bit like magic. Somehow they fit me like a glove and enabled me to delve deeper into my creativity. Many of my drawings and paintings were not completed in the same year that I started them; they evolved over a span of 1 to 6 years. Some drawings contain (a bit) acrylics in this finishing process. The first reason for this was practical, because I started to damage the paper with the numerous layers of pencil lines trying to change the drawing once again. The second reason was that it gave me the opportunity to bring back some calm and even surfaces (with a brushstroke rather than adding more small pencil lines."
"My work is characterized by a combination of expressionism and fine art. An important theme in my work is stark contrasts, often shaped by the play of light and shadow. For instance, during a hot summer day you can look at a big chestnut tree. The space beneath the tree, the shadow, can be incredibly dark, while the rest of the tree is very bright. The fact that they are co-dependent is extremly fascinating to me.
Different mediums are important to me. In the past it was predominantly oil paint, but now it's mostly acrylics, colored pencils and collage techniques. Only recently, since 2020, I started working with colored pencils. I am simply in love with them, because of the options this medium offers and how you can use them. It feels a bit like magic. Somehow they fit me like a glove and enabled me to delve deeper into my creativity. Many of my drawings and paintings were not completed in the same year that I started them; they evolved over a span of 1 to 6 years. Some drawings contain (a bit) acrylics in this finishing process. The first reason for this was practical, because I started to damage the paper with the numerous layers of pencil lines trying to change the drawing once again. The second reason was that it gave me the opportunity to bring back some calm and even surfaces (with a brushstroke rather than adding more small pencil lines."
See More Art by Joyce van den Engel
This review was published by Circle Foundation for the Arts © CFA Press ∙Images are courtesy of the artist