About
I paint everyday in my Milwaukee, Wisconsin
studio. I'm lucky. I started this practice many
years ago when I studied with Henry Hensche
at the Cape School in Provincetown,
Massachusetts on Cape Cod. At the Cape
School we learned about color and light.
Later I studied at the Art Students League in
New York City where I lived for 15 years.
There I studied figure drawing and painting.
My work has been representational. It comes rather easily to me now but I wanted to change. Beginning in 2020 I managed to do that. I could never see a path out of representation but I took a class with Nicholas Wilton and it changed my life.
It can seem like abstract art has no structure and that "my kid could do that." It's more complicated than that. The skill required is different than with representational work.
My paintings are created with no particular plan in mind. Thinking only in terms of differences in shape, color, size and value I paint whatever comes spontaneously. This method provides a freedom and a structure that I hadn't known before. It makes me feel new and awake.
My hope is that because I feel a comfort and stimulation with these paintings that you might also.
Fred Bell, 2020
