Emily will follow in mom’s footsteps after all
DEURNE – Emily van de Wiel from Deurne had the world at her feet in early 2020. She had just graduated and was going to travel to Asia for half a year. A career like her mother, the famous artist Ellen Voets from Deurne, seemed far away. The corona pandemic messed up Emily’s travel plans and got her painting anyway.
by Bram Vannisselroij in the Weekblad voor Deurne
In Emily’s beautifully furnished apartment in the heart of Deurne, are two penetrating portraits staring at you upon entering. The hyper-realistic paintings actually look more like photographs than works of art. Her mother knew that Emily has a creative mind. At the Alfrink College, her daughter regularly received a 9.5 for drawing, mainly because the teacher refused to hand out a 10. “I really liked drawing, but I always said I didn’t want to follow my mother,” Emily recalls.
She continued her studies at SintLucas in Boxtel (mbo) and then the art academy in Maastricht (hbo). Her mother often paints (African) animals and together they traveled to Africa and Asia. “When I finished my studies, I decided to travel around for half a year myself.” Her first destination was Thailand, but after just a month, corona messed up her plans. “I decided to go back to the Netherlands while I still could. If something happened to my grandmother or other relatives, I would be stuck on the other side of the world.”
Once home, she suddenly had plenty of time. Social life came to a standstill and she also had no job (yet). She decided to paint. Under the wings of the well-known artist Robert Euwe, she discovered her passion for art. At the time, she could be found four or five times a week in the studio of her mentor on the Kleine Berg in Eindhoven. Ellen was surprised that her daughter is such a natural. “Especially because she used to mainly draw. Emily quickly developed her own style, characterized by hyper-realistic details, in which she does not shy away from nudity. Ellen: “You often see that children of artists copy their father’s or mother’s trick and actually copy that style. This is not the case with Emily, she is really distinctive.”
Although mother and daughter both work with oil paint, they use different techniques. Ellen often uses several layers of paint and therefore her paintings are somewhat coarser in structure. This is not possible with Emily’s works because of the many details she tries to capture in her paintings. She now works as a marketer at the Intens Festival, but she is starting to make a name for herself as an artist. Six of her paintings have already found a new owner. “That’s quite special when you see that I haven’t been painting that long. And if I don’t get them sold, I’ll just hang them up at home.”
She recently sold a painting to her mother’s neighbours. The couple already owned a work of art by Ellen, so there are two generations of paintings on the wall in the house in Walsberg. A career as a full-time artist is not yet something Emily aspires to. “Maybe that’s something I’d like to do in the future.”
Ellen works with a number of galleries that represent her and sell her work. All these galleries have now also noticed Emily’s work and are ‘preying’ on her paintings. “Her level is that high,” says mother proudly. The young artist puts a lot of time into her challenging portraits. “Of course it depends on the size, but it happens that I work eighty hours on a painting.” Painting sometimes affects her social life, she says when she points to an immense painting that has not yet been completed. “I had a meeting with friends the other day, but I was busy finishing the leg. Then painting comes first,” she concludes.