C Kari Bell

Part dream, part reality and part memory, I paint what I feel about what I see. I use oils and often cold wax medium to create abstract paintings that reflect both my understanding and experience of living in the Southwest. My process is like a superhighway with ideas flowing all the time until an exit says "get off". This germination of ideas is ongoing and in constant transition as my ongoing experiences evolve with exposure. For me, nothing is off limits; what I see is my truth. Painting is the most challenging thing I have ever done and it is, as well, the most peaceful. I am alternately fascinated, inspired, and challenged by what I have experienced in this truly cultural mosaic that is the Southwest. Trained early as a sociologist, my reactions to life in the desert, Southwest history and geography as well as many socio-cultural concerns, flow into my work.

Kari Bell is a contemporary abstract painter, working and drawing inspiration from personal experience, the natural landscape and rich history of New Mexico. Utilizing oils or oils and cold wax, Kari creates space for spontaneous happenings within the paint itself; the waxy surface can be scratched, gouged, patterned, pressed and stained layer after layer. This invites the viewer to take a deeper look. Her work interprets historical and geographical displacement, climate change and lived experience through the bold pairing of color, light, texture and form. Much of Kari’s earlier aesthetic experiences were spent abroad in Spain and France. There Kari immersed herself in the expanse of European and Latin American arts and culture and assembled a mental portfolio, filing away vivid imagery, documenting experience and preserving memory while slowly integrating her unique painterly framework and artist identity. Now in a different place and life stage, painting takes on the objective of challenging societal norms while celebrating the extensive multi cultural webs of life in the Southwest. Kari’s abstracted works seek to push boundaries, encourage innovation, imagination and a deeper level of creative inquiry. Kari is co-founder of the Taos Abstract Artist Collective and co-curator of the 2022 inaugural TAAC exhibition, the Fall 2023 and Spring 2024. Additionally she is the founder of Cerulean Art Salon, a caucus based in the Albuquerque area.

2-D, Painting (all materials)