Her father, André Devaux, was a well known craftsman in silverware and jewelry in the region and her mother, Mariette Godu, came from a very modest family.

Although the family home and shop in Namur were destroyed by a Royal Air Force bomb in 1940, the young Axell was little affected by World War II.

He cast her as an interviewer in Jeunes Artistes de Namur (1957) in which she introduced young avant-garde Belgian painters.

Inspired by these studio visits, Axell created her own style of Pop art, becoming one of the first Belgian artists to experiment within this avant-garde idiom.

[5] At this time she started to use the androgynous name "Axell" professionally, in the hopes that she would be taken seriously as an artist despite her gender, youth, and beauty, not to mention the explicit sexual nature of her work.

[7] Critic Pierre Restany commented, "The Belgian painter Evelyne Axell has joined the company of womanpower's art, with Niki de Saint Phalle from France, Yayoi Kusama from Japan, Marisol from Venezuela - and the list goes on.

She had secured an exhibition in Mexico for 1973, decided to divorce from her husband and move to Central America for a few years where she had found a nice house in Guatemala with the help of the Devaux family.

[9] Her final piece, L'herbe folle, shows a woman resting comfortably with her sunglasses by her side and surrounded by a tropical forest.

Soon after, Axell evolved a groundbreaking signature technique by using transparent and translucent plastic sheets from which she cut silhouettes of her voluptuous females and self-conscious heroines absorbed in (homo)erotic poses and activities.

With their upfront sexual imagery, the use of bright colours and manufactured plastic materials, their intense monochromatic surfaces and canvasses shaped like large sign posts and public tableaux, Axell's paintings owned the immediacy and commonality of Pop.

Le Pop Art jusqu’au Paradis", Maison de la Culture de la province de Namur, Musée Provincial Félicien-Rops, Namur, Galerie Détour, Jambes, Belgium "Evelyne Axell", The Mayor Gallery, London "Evelyne Axell, Die belgische Amazone der Pop Art", Fernsehturm and Belgian Embassy, Berlin " Evelyne Axell, Du viol d’Ingres au retour de Tarzan", Musée d’art Roger-Quillot, Clermont-Ferrand "The Sixties seen by Evelyne Axell", Patrick Derom Gallery, Brussels "Axell (1965 – 1972) Entre Pop Art et Figuration Narrative", Galerie Natalie Seroussi, Paris "Evelyne Axell, le Pop Art en Wallonie", Centre Wallon d’Art Contemporain, Flémalle "Axell’s Paradise, Last works (1971-72) before she vanished", Broadway 1602 Gallery, New York "Evelyne Axell, Images contestataires", WIELS, Brussels "La Terre est ronde", Kunstverein, Hamburg "Axelleration" (retrospective exhibition), Museum Abteiberg, Monchengladbach "The great journey into Space", Broadway 1602 Gallery, New York "Arts d’Extrème-Occident", Galerie Angle Aigü, Brussels "Jeune peinture belge", Palais des Beaux-Arts, Brussels "Boîtes à secrets, à surprises", Galerie Maya, Brussels Schwarz galleria d’Arte, Milan Biennale des Jeunes, Paris Premio Lissone, Milan Galerie Accent, Brussels "Alternative Attuali", L’Aquila "Jeune peinture belge", Palais des Beaux-Arts, Brussels "Images et signes de notre temps", Musées Royaux des Beaux-Arts de Belgique, Brussels "Pop Art—Nouveau Réalisme—Néo Dada et tendances apparentées", Casino Knokke "Le plastique et l’art contemporain", Grand Palais, porte de Versailles, Paris "Belgische Kunst 1960-1970", Kunstverein, Köln "Multiples", Galerie Rive gauche, Brussels Prix International, Knokke Winter Art Show, Brussels Galerie Klang, Köln Tweede Triënnale, Bruges Galerie Richard Foncke, Ghent "D’aprés—Omaggi e dissacrazioni nell’arte contemporanea ", Lugano, Switzerland "La Vénus de Milo ou les dangers de la célébrité", Musée du Louvre, Paris "De Permeke à nos jours", Palais des Beaux-Arts, Brussels "La Femme dans l’art", Musées royaux des Beaux-Arts de Belgique, Brussels "De jaren '60—Kunst in België", Centre d’expositions Sint-Pietersabdij, Ghent "Vies de femmes 1830-1980", Europalia Belgique, Banque Bruxelles Lambert, Brussels "Femmes artistes en Namurois", Halle al’Chair, Namur "Autoportraits en Belgique depuis 1945", Maison de la Culture de la province de Namur, Namur "ARTificial WOMEN", Galerie Cotthem, Zottegem "De Picasso à Magritte.