It’s a Kind of Magic - A Portrait of Joy

It’s a kind of magic, 2024 - Emma Woolley

“A reflection on joy, instinct, and coming home to myself by Emma Woolley”

I painted It’s a Kind of Magic on Sunday 8th September 2024. I started at 2:45 in the afternoon and finished at 7:55 that evening, just as the light was fading. I remember the final photo I took under the room lights had a yellow tinge to it. I'd been in that seat, painting non-stop, for five hours and ten minutes. The entire thing came out in one deep, uninterrupted session. And honestly, that still surprises me.

Because it’s not about speed. I’m not someone who’s interested in saying, “look how fast I can paint.” Some paintings take days. Some take weeks. This one just… arrived. Fully formed. No battles. No getting stuck. It was a joy to make. And it was painted in joy, through joy, and with joy.

The spark

The spark came from a reference I saw someone mid-laugh, head tilted back, completely caught in a moment of joy. The expression was infectious. It made me grin just looking at it. You know when someone’s laughter is so big and real that it sets everyone else off too? That’s what this painting did to me before I’d even touched a brush. I just knew I had to paint it.

And then, to top it off, I had a full Queen day while painting. I put on the entire back catalogue and just let it run. Freddie Mercury blasting through the speakers, me singing along while I worked. That kind of energy is everything. It’s not the first time I’ve done it, I often work my way through whole discographies while I paint, but this time, Queen was the perfect soundtrack. And of course, It’s a Kind of Magic is a Queen track, from their 1986 album of the same name. We used to listen to it on cassette. You had to fast forward to find a track, none of this skipping on Spotify. You sat with it. Listened through. Let the music run.

I have so many memories tied to those songs. My dad loved Freddie Mercury. We’d watch his taped VH1 performances together, especially Live in Budapest. Beer in hand, my dad on his guitar, both of us singing our heads off. That voice. That stage presence. That joy. It lives in me now. I think, in a strange way, it lives in this painting too.

Queen Live in Budapest is a concert film of the British rock band Queen's performance at the Népstadion in Budapest on 27 July 1986.

Letting it flow

Like a few of the other pieces in The Wonder Series, this one started with a reference. But I didn’t just copy what I saw, I took the energy of it and cranked it up. Blue hair. A multicoloured shirt. Prussian blue shadows. Big tonal shapes. All of it just came out naturally. I didn’t plan it. I just responded to what felt good in the moment.

I always leave the hair until the end. It’s the finale. The thing that finishes the person, but not in a literal way. The hair in my paintings is rarely over-rendered, and I don’t want it to be. It’s more like a kind of aura, a vibration coming off the head. It holds the energy of the painting. It doesn’t need to look like real hair. It just needs to feel right.

I’ve been noticing that in a lot of my recent work. Unfinished areas. Missing ears. Looser edges. I let the undone bits do some of the talking. Not everything needs to be overworked. Some things are better left raw.

A joy to be in it

I can’t overstate how in it I was. It was one of those rare sessions where you don’t want to stop. I was completely locked in probably hyper-fixating if I’m honest, riding the ADHD wave because I was enjoying it so much. I remember the skin tones coming together and thinking, “Yes. This is working.” I got really into the mouth too, I love painting open mouths, especially when you can see the roof and that little glint of light on the ridges above the gums. It’s so satisfying!

By the end, I was on such a high I didn’t want it to be over. Sometimes when I finish a painting and I’m in that state, I’ll literally pull it off the easel and prime a new one straight away, just to keep the momentum going. I’ve definitely done that before. Like a marathon. I laugh about it now, but it’s honestly one of the most euphoric feelings, being inside a painting like that, knowing it’s working, knowing it’s alive.

Who is this person?

Honestly? It’s a bit of everyone. There’s Freddie in there. There’s me. There’s my dad. There’s how I felt on the day. There’s a person who doesn’t sit easily into male or female, and that means something to me too. I’ve lived surrounded by non-binary, queer, and gender-fluid friends and chosen family. I’m gay, I’ve been with my girlfriend for years, and I know how powerful visibility can be.

Portraiture has always leaned towards the recognised and the royal, kings, queens, the canon. But we’re in a different time now. I want to put people on the stage who aren’t always seen. People with and without names. People who hold energy, not just likeness.

At my first Open Studios at Moseley Exchange, people kept asking me, “Who is that?” One thought it was a woman. Another thought it was a guy from a baking show. Everyone was trying to pin it down. And I realised then, the ambiguity was doing something. It was making people look. It was letting them find their own story.

It’s personal

If there’s one detail that matters most to me, it’s the expression. The moment of laughter. I really honed in on it. I wanted to make sure it came through loud and clear. That belly-laugh energy. Because if you know me, you’ll know that I love to laugh. I’ve been told I’ve got a mad, infectious laugh, the kind that makes people turn around in the pub. And that joy? That comes from my family.

Dad, David Woolley, Moseley, Birmingham in the1990’s, Doing an impression of Harry Enfield and Chums…

My dad was hilarious. Dry, witty, full of stories and punchlines. He was the one with the guitar at parties, cracking jokes and getting the whole room going. My brother is just the same, the two of us laugh at each other for hours. My grandad too. I remember working at a shoe shop in Acocks Green when I was sixteen, and my grandad would walk past and squish his face up against the window just to embarrass me. Then we’d go home and watch Tommy Cooper and The Two Ronnies. It’s in me, this love of laughter. Of not taking life too seriously.

So yes… this painting is personal. And yes, it’s emotional. But above all, it’s a portrait of joy.

Grandad, Ron Evans - The life and soul of the family parties! Circa 1970’s

The legacy of joy

Every painting in The Wonder Series has its own emotion. Some are about stillness. Some are about memory. Some are heavy with grief or quiet longing. But this one? This one is joy. Pure and simple.

If The Wonder Series were a family, this would be the loud cousin, the one you remember from every party. Or like Inside Out, if each painting were an emotion, this one would be Joy. Fully charged. Bright yellow. Alive.

And maybe that’s the real meaning behind It’s a Kind of Magic. That after everything, after a year where I’d lost myself and found my way back through paint, I could still laugh. I could still sing Queen at full volume and paint blue hair and feel like myself again. I could still feel joy.

This painting is proof of that. That no matter what you’ve gone through, joy does return. And when it does, it feels like magic.