Anne Bell’s Paintings Featured at Union Arts Center

Union Arts Center will be presenting an exhibition of paintings by Anne Bell, now through April 16. The gallery, located at 2 Union Avenue in Sparkill, NY, is open to the public Wednesday through Sunday from 12 noon – 4:00 p.m.

“I am interested in painting as a visual language,” said Ms Bell. “As a former student of Vaclav Vytlacil at the Art Students League in NYC, I was trained to use abstraction as a means of expression. Throughout my career I have been exploring ways of using color, line, form, space, and rhythm to express what it is to be alive.”

Many of Anne Bell’s paintings focus on the movement and rhythm of plants and flowers. “Different kinds of plants have different ways of moving,” explained the artist. “Some are voluptuous and unfold with care. Lilies on a single plant often reach out and caress each other as they bloom. Their leaves take up a circular movement and their berries form a musical counterpoint to the whole choreography. By contrast, a zigzag cactus grows in spurts and jumps, and then reaches out in a big sweeping movement with its mature arms to find the sun.

“As a painter, I try to capture this sensation with line, form and color. The challenge is to convert my means – charcoal, paint, and linen – into a visual response to what I see. We are all dazzled by the beautiful colors in flowers, and the way their colors sometimes float on top of each other. By using layered color and line, and variations of value, chroma and intervals, I seek to convey their rhythm, movement, and visual music. I often use a large scale even for plants that are in reality quite small. I do this because I want to take the viewer into their dance, to sense them physically, as if one is a participant in their seduction.

“The last fifty years of abstract art have opened up new ways of creating a visual language. At this point I am working with abstraction and inspired by realism, always trying to capture a life force.”

Ms. Bell has had solo exhibitions in Soho and Tribeca galleries; and participated in group shows in Provincetown, MA; Washington, D.C., and other locations. Her work was favorably reviewed by the renowned critic John Russell in The New York Times.

Born in New Orleans, La., Anne Bell attended Sarah Lawrence College, the Art Student’s League, and the Corcoran School of Art. She currently resides in Soho, NYC and South Nyack, NY.

For more information on Anne Bell’s show at Union Street Arts, go to: http://uacny.com/exhibition/paintings-anne-bell/

or call (845) 359-0258. You can also visit her web site at: http://annebellpaintings.com/