Roxy van Bemmel’s paintings and illustrations are both familiar and unfamiliar. With a focus on portrait art, her subjects are painted with exaggerated features and dramatic color stories.
“I paint photos, Instagram photos, myself, my mind,” writes van Bemmel on her website. “They’re kind of like relatable aliens.”
Having studied fashion design at ArtEZ Academy of the Arts in Arnhem, van Bemmel’s art explores two of her biggest interests and sources of inspiration: fashion and people (her tagline on Instagram? “Painting faces to remember what my friends look like”).
“I’m fascinated by people,” she explains on her website. “The way their eyes are just a little unhappy, how their mouth is saying something that hasn’t been said yet.”
But though inspired by people and what they wear, her artistic style is more expressionistic than realistic, providing in and of itself an artistic interpretation to fashion as an art movement. As such, her subjects become somewhat elusive, hard to pinpoint regarding gender, race, or age. “Often my subjects are female, sometimes they’re in between,” says van Bemmel.
But when it comes to her message, van Bemmel hopes to empower others. “I want the viewer to receive confidence,” she writes. “They can be a bit scared too, but they should go home confident. Like putting on your perfect outfit, I want my paintings to be like that.”
