Hailing from Awabakal land (Newcastle), Bel is a self-taught artist, having learnt to be still while a time of illness forced her into rest. At this time, the artist picked up a brush and some paints not knowing she would find great solitude and comfort through painting, and this is how she came to paint at all. Wonderfully, this practice has become a way of living for Bel, and through the situation that was, became a love of her life.

With a commitment to her craft and a connection to the land, Bel is drawn to the natural ochres and pigments that are native to the Australian earth. While Bel’s philosophy is deeply entrenched in her cultural identity, in this series she pays homage to the season that’s come and go, and come and go.

Bel’s palette echoes what she sees – vibrant colours, surfaces and textures. There is a layering of what she sees that is interspersed with what she paints. Bel’s palette and subjects hum a meditative silence of the bush and landscape of this Sunburnt Country. Her sombre palette and repetition of her subject echo a melancholia in her rhetoric.

With looming, skeletal trees in the foreground, a Rothko-like treatment of canvas pulls the viewer in, posing a question – will you take a moment to bask in the surrounding?

Bel’s connection to place, childhood memories and surrealist dreamscapes are evident as her paintings speak to her philosophy of art as medicine.

Bel is represented by 5 galleries across Australia, and is in the process of some exciting ventures with textiles and ceramics.