Bell at Wilson Pearl Street; Community School art auction

Wednesday, March 19, 2008

By Henry Sweets

Jackson Hole, Wyo.-Jeromey Bell’s paintings at the Wilson Pearl Street Bagels shop are small, idyllic landscapes painted in acrylic on wood. Inspired by Japanese printmaking, coastal Alaskan summers, and life in Kelly, Wyo., the pieces exude a balanced, thoughtful aesthetic.

Bell has spent his last 10 winters in Teton County and spends his summers guiding rafts in Alaska. There, the environment is social and the daylight hours are long, so he winds up playing music more than working in the visual arts.

“I sort of oscillate between music and art,” Bell said. “Wintertime definitely is the painting season for me.” Bell hadn’t spent much of the last three years painting, but this winter, in Kelly, he composed a small body of work and happened onto an opportunity to show them at the bagel shop.

In the past, he painted figures playing jazz and blues but this winter has put together a group of landscapes using subjects like cranes, blossoming branches and boats. Instead of coming to town to waste his time at “bars or whatever,” Bell stayed in Kelly working on his paintings, or reviewing subject matter at the Teton County Library and “trying to uncover something new,” he said. As a landscape artist living in Jackson Hole, and especially in Kelly, it is tempting to paint the Tetons, but Bell thinks that limits his possibilities for creativity. “As much as we all love them, it’s great to get out and do something different,” he said.

Japanese Printmakers Katsushika Hokusai and Ando Hiroshige, and also Ecuadorian painter Oswaldo Guayasamin, have impacted the works that currently hang at PSB. The Japanese printmaking aesthetic is apparent in Bell’s work that personifies nature and has movement in its serenity. Bell says he is drawn to the “lyrical lines” used by Hokusai and Hiroshige. The influence of Guayasamin, who paints with a knife, can be seen in Bell???s backgrounds, in which colors are layered and scraped over or pulled through with a palette knife.

His work will hang until April 20. All but one are priced under $200.

At 6 p.m. on Friday night the Jackson Hole Community School will host its first ever art auction. Works by Community School students will hang alongside those of local artists like Carrie Geraci, Mike Piggott and Gerry Spence. The auction is designed to generate awareness of the Community School and their art program, as well as to raise funds for a good cause.

The Van Vleck house was chosen as the recipient of 50 percent of the proceeds, with the other 50 percent going to the Community School. The students nominated the Van Vleck house so they could help people their own age, in their own town, who have not experienced the same good fortune as them.

Christian Burch, visual arts teacher at the Community School, noted that the school’s academic strengths are often recognized, and this event is important to “let the kids show their talents as artists … because I think that’s less known.”

Burch’s visual arts classes have been learning recently about artists like Andy Warhol, Keith Herring, Julian Schnabel and Frida Kahlo - “artists that use emotion in their painting,” said Burch, “to show kids that everyone can put their thoughts down as artists.”

Student works like landscape and portrait photography, as well as some thoughtful abstract paintings, will be shown.

Senior James Landis will show two works in the auction. James describes himself as a “skier, of course,” and a lacrosse player as well as a photographer. He has been taking photographs seriously since the ninth grade, and will be showing a black and white landscape taken in Wyoming, as well as a color digital print taken in our local skate park.

“I love doing film photography because it lets me create something on my own, I get to watch it from stage one through the finished product,” Landis said. He also noted that light-painting and digital photography have their draw as well.

“It really lets you be creative, and really lets the artistic side of your abilities shine through because you are able to paint whatever you want,” he said. “I like to make people wonder what I am trying to say.”

As many as 50 pieces will be displayed throughout the school. Hors de Oeuvres will be served, and some Community School students will be on hand to give tours of their school.

Courtesy Jeromey Bell
“Plum blossom with boats,” Jeromey Bell

PERMALINK:
Bell at Wilson Pearl Street; Community School art auction | Planet JH News Article: Arts Beat

Leave a Comment