The Loss of the Amazon - BFA show

April 3rd - May 1, 2009
Opening Reception
Friday, April 3, 2009
6-8:00 pm

Woodbury Art Museum, Utah Valley University
575 East University Parkway, N250 Orem, Utah 84097
(801) 863-6200 www.uvu.edu/museum

Breath and Blood of the Amazon

The spirit of Amazonia animates the lush paintings of Josella Bell, a Brazilian native whose work pulsates with rich color modulations, sensual textures, and profound emotional depth. As an expressionist, Bell's work is visually eloquent - layers of organic shape grow from large canvases, textures build one on top of another like formations of rock or clay. But the artist's work represents more than aesthetic exploration. Behind the layers of paint and sand and marble paste is Brazil, a subject of many faces.

In her current series, The Loss of the Amazon, Bell employs her discernible expressionistic style to express her deep personal connection to her homeland, as well as her inner calling to explore the complexities and nuances of Amazonia. This series focuses on the destruction of the rainforests of the Amazon; but rather than employing a scientific or ecological viewpoint, the artist gives nature a voice, likening the forest to the human body. While some of Bell's works feature earthy tones of olive, lime, and emerald, the artist also uses powerful hues of scarlet, ruby, and burgundy hues symbolic of blood and body. The artist speaks of fragmentation and injury, comparing deforestation to skin being peeled from the body. The fragments are scattered, as if everyone takes a slice away.

Rather than capturing the forest itself, Bell records the passion and emotion of the forest - its anguish and fear, its cries of pain and sense of loss. Indeed, the inner life of Bell's paintings takes precedence over structure and arrangement. The organic qualities of texture, color, and shape become the breath, blood, and spirit of the works. Even the creation of the works involves organic processes - the artist does not simply use paint on canvas, but also incorporates sand and marble paste, elements from the earth itself. Thus, the rich, almost sculptural quality of Bell's paintings is not simply aesthetic, but reflects the textures and patterns of the artist's homeland -clay, vegetation, moisture, and sand.

For the artist, nature is more than merely a foundation for culture and history - it is the foundation for all life. The Loss of the Amazon focuses on the powerful subtleties of nature discovered by the artist during her own personal and artistic journey. For the viewer, Bell's works are visually powerful in their sweeping forms, vibrant hues, and rich textures. The images speak to the senses and, perhaps more importantly, to the soul. In the words of nineteenth-century sculptor Auguste Rodin: "Art is contemplation. It is the pleasure of the mind which searches into nature and which there divines the spirit of which Nature herself is animated."
Courtney R. Davis
Art Historian and Attorney


The heavily textured paintings and drawings of Josie Bell bear the weight of repetitious layers of media and substance, but also the weight of the message of a land besieged. A native of Brazil, Bell bears the mantle of the messenger, or almost oracle of the Amazon forest. She bears a special sense of purpose in decrying its modern-day abuse and works feverishly to record its vanishing voice. The works reveal the heart and bone of the earth, at once resplendent in luscious diversity of species and then stripped to the bone. For Bell, some of the works embody the skin of the earth flayed back as humanity gouges wealth out of its once verdant soil leaving the detritus of commerce in its wastes. It seems to cry out as though undergoing surgery without anesthesia. The cry is silent, yet penetrates the soul to the center, and is a force that is compelling in its plea for deliverance. As witness to this song of the earth, Bell explores visual forms that delve into its warm moist darkness as one entering sacred ground.
Marcus Alan Vincent
Director, Woodbury Art Museum, Utah Valley University
Associate Professor of Painting / Drawing