Post-robbery rage colors paintings, rising artist says

Guy Bell’s 2013 oil-on-canvas Cain and Abel will be part of the new “State of the Art: Discovering American Art Now” exhibition at Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art in Bentonville. The museum’s curators traveled more than 100,000 miles and visited nearly 1,000 artists to put the exhibit together.
Guy Bell’s 2013 oil-on-canvas Cain and Abel will be part of the new “State of the Art: Discovering American Art Now” exhibition at Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art in Bentonville. The museum’s curators traveled more than 100,000 miles and visited nearly 1,000 artists to put the exhibit together.

BENTONVILLE -- Little Rock artist Guy Bell's paintings are in high demand since one of his paintings was chosen to be included in the Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art's new contemporary art exhibition "State of the Art: Discovering American Art Now." His works' new popularity allowed him to quit his odd jobs and become a full-time artist.

Bell was one of four Arkansas artists from 102 artists selected nationally for the "State of The Art" exhibit.

Bell's piece that Crystal Bridges Curator Chad Alligood chose for "State of The Art" is titled Cain and Abel, after the fatal Old Testament conflict between the two sons of Adam and Eve. The oil painting depicts a black dog in a vicious fight with a white one. Both are reared up on their hind legs in the middle of a dirt road. The background is an ochre color in varying hues. Headlights from an approaching car can be seen in the dusty distance.

Bell, 34, gave some insight into the painting and how he came to create it during a recent art talk for about 80 patrons at Crystal Bridges. The Bentonville museum took most "State of The Art" works on loan from the artists. It also accepted a few commissions, where artists were hired to create pieces specifically for a collection. Bell said he is in talks with Crystal Bridges about an acquisition, but has no work in mind at this time. The "State of The Art" exhibit runs through Jan. 19. Admission to the museum and exhibition are free.

The concepts for Bell's artwork come to him randomly, sometimes from flashes of dreams that he quickly sketches out when he wakes, though most of his works are created from apophenia -- the experience of seeing patterns of connections in random or meaningless data. "You look in the clouds and you see shapes or faces, or you look at a tree and can make out a horse or something like that," Bell said.

Bell spent a great deal of time staring randomly at the popcorn-patterned ceiling of his home after being the victim of a home-invasion robbery at a friend's house.

"Four guys guys came in with guns, held one to my head, and it was a pretty scary situation," he said. At one point, one of the gunmen pointed a weapon to Bell's head, counted to five, pulled the trigger and the gun only "clicked," he said.

After the robbery, Bell said he suffered from post-traumatic stress disorder and was angry and afraid to leave his home.

"I laid in bed at night and stared at the ceiling," he said. "I noticed the little spots and the spots would take shape."

The mental scenes in his ceiling became a place of refuge, and it lessened his anxiety and sense of isolation. Then he took the concept of his eyes surveying and making sense of the spots on his ceiling and he applied it to artwork. He took the pictures he created by his mind and made them the foreground of his paintings. The background is the part of the painting that influences the mind, he said.

"I do this to try to build a connection between the viewer and myself," Bell said. "I want other people to understand [that] we all have these emotions we feel together."

Bell dubbed Cain and Abel a self-portrait of himself and of society. He used the dogs as metaphors, he said, because "the dog has been something that has evolved along beside us. They're something that we feel is close to us spiritually and emotionally."

Bell recalled a quote from a teacher he admired when he was a student at Little Rock Catholic High School: "The measure of a man is how well he controls the beast within."

The painter considered himself a victim of the robbery and aftermath, "to be Abel and know what it's like to have your brother want to kill you." After the robbery, he was filled with rage and wanted revenge, like Cain.

"It's our feeling that we have of wanting something over on someone else -- and being taken over," he said. "And that's what I tried to convey in this painting."

Even before the robbery, Bell said he had an understanding of art. His parents divorced when he was young and Bell split his time between Little Rock, where his mother lived, and Dallas or wherever his dad was flying to as a pilot. While with his dad, his father was often working.

Bell considered himself a latchkey kid. He came and went pretty much at his pleasure and spent a lot of time in museums and galleries and going to see art installations. He wanted to go to art school but couldn't afford it.

Bell eventually earned a liberal arts degree with an emphasis in business from the University of Arkansas at Little Rock. He worked odd jobs during the day and painted at night, sometimes to the point when he'd only get an hour's sleep a day.

Though he mostly paints, Bell works in other media, as well.

"Within oil painting, there are a lot of different techniques you can use and I constantly experiment," he added.

Bell's goal is to build his personal painting inventory to 40 works to achieve his personal goal of a solo show, but his works sell almost as fast as he completes them, he said Tuesday.

"[I] can't get close," he said. He's now down to seven or eight. Where he used to have to wait six months or more to sell a painting, they've recently been snatched up in as little as an hour.

Bell also noticed that his social media following has burgeoned, and he's making connections all around the country. He even sold a painting to someone in Singapore.

He is not represented by any gallery at this time, but he has works hanging at Boswell Mourot Fine Art in Little Rock. For the rest of this year and next, Bell is working strictly on commissions.

Metro on 10/01/2014

Upcoming Events