PORTFOLIO

A black and white photo of a woman with wavy hair, eye makeup, and lipstick, looking directly at the camera with her lips slightly parted. She is holding her hand above her head with her fingers positioned as if she is balancing or posing.

PORTFOLIO

emma.vanrosmalen@gmail.com

I'm Emma, a visual artist and creative based in Amsterdam. Next to art I am a lawyer and writer, a well known face within the Amsterdam gallery scene and an avid visitor of every notable expostion or museum.

I've been a resident of the art world for five years and counting. I've created, united, critiqued, consulted, styled, organised, and directed. Next to this I have extensive experience in the event and party scene managing funding and connecting to bespoke venues.

EMMA HÉLÈNE

Artist & Art curator

Select Works

A young woman with long wavy hair taking a mirror selfie with her phone. She is bending down, wearing a green cropped sweatshirt and light-colored pants. The mirror has white paint and black lines drawn on it, creating an abstract design. There are art supplies like a white container, a pen, and a lid placed on the wooden floor in front of the mirror. In the background, there are colorful abstract paintings and a window with sunlight streaming in.
Indoor party space with wooden walls and a corrugated metal ceiling illuminated by purple and pink lighting. Neon outline decorations are hung along the wall, and a long table is set with plates, bottles, flowers, and candles, surrounded by chairs.
An artist painting a nude figure on a canvas at an art event or workshop.
Stack of colorful magazines featuring a woman on the cover with the word "FREAK" in large purple letters, surrounded by various images and illustrations. 
Mixed MEDia art
light installations
Oil Paint canvases
event stage and magazine design
A woman with red face and body paint, wearing a white hair scrunchie and light-colored shorts, standing in a room with a keyboard and framed pictures, pressing her right hand against her chest.

When I am not painting or curating exhibitions, I work as an art collector and creative consultant for events. Alongside painting, I have developed a mixed-media practice that I call “lost and found art”, a way of working in which discarded, overlooked, or unexpected objects become the starting point for a new work.

This practice is deeply inspired by wandering through the streets of Amsterdam, where beautiful furniture and objects are often left behind as unwanted. I am drawn to these objects in their in-between state: no longer serving their original purpose, yet carrying traces of a previous life. Rather than treating them as waste, I look for ways to give them another context and another form.

Anything can become part of a work, a found object can become a canvas, a fragment can become part of a sculpture, and an abandoned piece of furniture can become the surface on which a new art work begins or. My process is therefore as much about discovering as it is about making.

This has led me to experiment with unconventional surfaces and materials, including a series of paintings made directly onto mirrors. Through specialised priming techniques, I transform the reflective surface into a canvas while preserving its inherent ability to reflect. The object remains recognisable, but its function shifts: a mirror becomes a painting, and the viewer becomes part of the work.

Commercial folio available upon request.

Latest Project

Memory and Memorabilia,
Launching early next year.