MICHAEL BELL has been capturing the city of Newcastle for more than three decades. The work of the renowned artist is currently on exhibition at Curve Gallery. Titled Double Vision, it features more than 40 works.
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Newcastle is firmly at the heart of many of the petite-sized paintings which are mostly three-dimensional.
After finishing school at Marist Brothers in Maitland, Bell undertook studies in fine art at Newcastle Art School before undertaking post-graduate studies at University of Newcastle.
“At art school my main interest was painting and drawing,” Bell says.
It was under the influence of Sydney-based pop artist Martin Sharp, who Bell knew personally, that saw him break away from convention.
“His disrespectful way of putting things together, he was a real collagist basically, and he would take things from art history and put them together, and I really liked that garnerist collage thing, and always with a sense of humour as well,” Bell says.
Another influence was an art school teacher John Montefiore who encouraged his students to “do the worst possible painting you could.”
“And this was after learning all the rules about correct tone, line, colour,” Bell says.
“We had to ignore all the things we were taught and try to do this, and for me that was a real revelation and a breakthrough because I could do whatever I wanted and I had real fun doing it.
“Before I had been slavishly trying to get everything right and now I was trying to get everything wrong and incredibly bad.
“I don’t think I have ever stopped trying to do that.”
Bell is well known for his works set at Horsehoe Beach, Newcastle’s dog beach. But in the works currently on exhibition, which were painted over a period of six months, the artist has moved his gaze slightly further afield.
The coastline and large cloudy horizons still feature, but so does the obelisk and the green rolling hills near King Edward Park. The work focuses very much on Newcastle’s outdoors.
“I used to live up on The Hill when I was an art student, and it [the Obelisk] was always a spooky place, especially at night time. And it was a wild place, people used to go up there and have parties and there was all these crazy sounds coming from there sometimes,” Bell says.
“It’s a place a lot of people look at, but not go up and have a look from up there. There is an astonishing view.”
The artist’s fascination with dogs, which he thinks of as being like a “totem”, continues in this body of work.
“I’ve got a dog … and it’s something between an animal and human persona in the things I make about dogs,” he says.
I used to live up on the hill when I was an art student, and it [the obelisk] was always a spooky place, especially at night time. And it was a wild place, people used to go up there and have parties and there was all these crazy sounds coming from there sometimes.
- Michael Bell
“I see them as this entity, as themselves, which are independent. There is something about them, and I like looking at them.
“I never get sick of looking at them and coming up with new ways to paint them.”
Many of the small-scale works on exhibition appear to pop-out and are reminiscent of a children’s story book. The works are vibrant and draw on cartoon-art, but the colours are somewhat muted.
“I have become more interested in colour over the years,” Bell says.
Bell’s work is held in many private and public collections, including The Australian National Gallery, Newcastle Art Gallery, Maitland Regional Gallery and Lake Macquarie City Art Gallery.
His work has been twice hung in The Archibald Prize, four times in The Sulman Prize and he has been a finalist in The Kilgour Art Prize on five occasions. He has produced designs for Mambo and ABC’s Triple J.
