ABOUT
My name is Els van Den Bosch and I am an Illustrator and Artist, living in Rotterdam. My work is inspired by personal experiences. Depending on the project, I work digital, analog or both.
After graduating from Gymnasium Haganum in The Hague I moved to Bournemouth in England for a Foundation Year at the Arts University Bournemouth. There, I learned a lot about English art, culture, landscapes and language. After this very exciting experience, I moved to Rotterdam and graduated in 2022 with a bachelor in Illustration at the Willem de Kooning academy.
My parents have been a big influence on my artistic interest. As long as I can remember my parents brought art into my life by taking me to museums, watching films about history and art, and giving me books about artists that we both enjoyed. They introduced me to a wide variety of artists and painters, for example Rembrandt, Van Eyk, Vermeer, Mondriaan, Tanaka Ryohei, Kusama, Snoeck and many others. This love for art and history is something that I have adopted and still inspires my own art.
So far I have lived in the city, which fuelled my interest in the hard contrast between city landscapes, and nature, aswel as the contrast between old and new architecture. Additionally, I am interested in how we, as humans, love, communicate, act, feel, need and exist.
I am always trying to make my work relatable for others by revealing my own experiences. I follow the news, listen to opinions and talk with people about what goes on in the world. This keeps me informed and critical about current affairs and how this relates to encounters in my own life.
I make self initiated work, for example paintings, illustrations, and drawings, about things on my mind or encounters that have sparked my interest, and portraits of friends, family members and strangers. Moreover, I enjoy working commissioned, exchanging ideas with clients, working on logo’s, branding, posters, album covers, clothing and illustrations that match their goals and my artistic ambitions for the project.