Skip to main content

In the Studio with E. Bell

Search This Blog

And Still More Old Work

on January 01, 2009

Get link
Facebook
X
Pinterest
Email
Other Apps

College and After (1998-2001) Continued

The King of Nothing Special, 2001

Open Minded, 2001

Now What?, 1998

Get link
Facebook
X
Pinterest
Email
Other Apps

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular Posts

Getting Started

Hi. I'm Eric Bell, and I'm a painter, or at least I was. Over the past few years, while focusing on things like my job (I'm a high school art teacher), it has gotten harder and harder for me to identify with what I have always thought it meant to be a painter. The word painter has always carried a great deal of weight to me. There is history to consider. There are expectations and canons of belief. There is a collective baggage. Each one of us who has ever touched paint to surface has to understand that. We come to the situation not new and fresh, but with a history as rich as that of mankind to take into consideration. We stand on the shoulders of the giants who came before us. So how do I fit into all of that? I don't know. The things I do know are that if I ever was a painter, I can be one again. I know that I didn't paint often enough, didn't really feel like my ideas were coming from the right place, didn't feel relevant. So how do I work ...

More Drawings from Sketchbooks: Identity

Sketchbook Drawing #11 , 2012 Pencil on Paper No blog yesterday! Ugh. Snow storm. Loss of power, etc. Moving on...this is what I started, that I'll now finish: This drawing makes me think about identity, which is a funny thing. At once the word itself can totally contradict itself. To identify with something connects you with others who have also identified with said thing. To explore one's own identity, and be an individual is in opposition to that, or maybe further connection to it. I'm not sure. I have no advanced physiological training, and have no expert information to add to this topic, I just find it interesting. What we choose to build our identity out of is funny. I see a lot of it in my students. Here at school kids make choices about how they want to represent themselves. Some guys want to be camo wearing big truck drivers. Others want to throw on some Ray-Bans, jam out t...

History & Intentions

I won’t get much work done in the studio today, but this might be a good time to communicate some of my artistic intentions. Meaning, I should begin to communicate what I’m attempting to do with my art. Historically (see some old stuff below and in later posts), my work has been about the way we connect - with each other and with the world at large - c ommentaries on who we are as a people and how we interact. They are great pictures. Exciting. Layered in content. Well constructed color use and composition. And t hat’s all well and good but they ultimately became the product of a dangerous artistic pitfall. The pitfall I speak of is when a painter (or any artist) starts to use his art as psychotherapy. The art becomes too self-contained, and stops being the reflection of society that art should be. The art was still focusing on connectedness and interactions, but it became entirely personal. I was answering my own questions without re gard for the world at large. Who love...

Powered by Blogger

Theme images by loops7