Evelyne Axell

Evelyne Axell (1935 – 1972) born in Namur, Belgium, began her career as a TV presenter, and went on to become an acclaimed actress and scriptwriter in Paris and Brussels. In 1964, having experienced significant misogyny in the film industry, Axell abandoned her acting career in favour of painting, taking lessons with her friend the artist René Magritte. Heavily influenced by artists such as Allen Jones, Peter Phillips, Pauline Boty, Peter Blake, Patrick Caulfield, and Joe Tilson, Axell fully embraced Pop Art, creating proto-feminist works that depict the emancipation of woman’s sexuality. In 1967, Axell began to work with plastic materials, developing her signature technique. Cutting female silhouettes into translucent plastic sheets and painting with enamel, she created provocative works infused with female desire and eroticism. As an artist she called herself just Axell to distract attention from her gender-specific first name and focus on the problematic position in which female artists found themselves at the time. In 1969 Axell, whose oeuvre includes collages, films, drawings and large-scale paintings, was the first woman to win the Young Belgian Painters Prize. Her career was tragically cut short in a car accident in 1972.