Dutch-Punjabi artist based in London. Specialising in family portraits, British identity and public history
Amber Van Den Berg - Fine Artist
Amber Van Den Berg is a mixed-race British artist based in London. Born in Camberwell in 2003, and practicing in Vauxhall, her work has always been grounded in the landscape of South London. Van Den Berg specializes in painted group portraits with a strong sense of story and interpersonal relationships. She uses acrylic or oil paints on found pieces of wood or card, and also works with pen, etching and mixed media to supplement her larger portraits.
In her earlier work, Van Den Berg explored the relationship between her Dutch-Punjabi background and her British identity. This theme motivates her daily sketches of fleeting and recurring objects, spaces and people that unite the components of her life in London.
Over the course of her undergraduate degree in history, contemporary and historical ideas of space, place, memory, and gender have become important in her practice. Accordingly, Van Den Berg's theatrical staging of group portraits act as studies in historicizing moments.
Running throughout Van Den Berg’s practice is the importance of routine and familial relationships. During her art foundation she explored the way that routines facilitate close links between family and social connectivity, while also acting as systems of control. Van Den Berg started using symbols in this project to represent each eating routine and placed them in compositions that emphasized community.
This use of symbolism to understand social connectivity is an ongoing theme in Van Den Berg’s work. Inspired by the work of Fin de Siècle artists such as Gustav Klimt and Aubrey Beardsley, her compositions use animal and fantastical symbols to tell stories. Van Den Berg also had the opportunity to design a zine as a public history output, in which she used illustrations from early modern broadsheets to address contemporary feelings of impending doom in the climate crisis. It is this process of applying historical detail, personal introspection, and relating to larger contemporary themes that makes her work stand out.
Van Den Berg attended the Royal Drawing School Young Artists Programme for eight years, until the age of 18. She was selected for the Royal Academy's AttRAct programme in 2020. She completed her foundation diploma in Fine Art and Design at City and Guilds of London Art School in 2022. She has since achieved a first in her History degree at University College London.
Education
2014-2021
Young Artist with the Royal Drawing School
2021-2022
Foundation at City and Guilds of London Art School (Distinction)
2022-2025
Undergraduate History Degree at University College London (First Class Honours)
Exhibitions
Group
2022
2022
Young Artists Summer Show, Royal Academy of Arts
Foundation Show, City and Guilds of London Art School