Kevin Bell

Kevin Bell grew up in the Pacific Northwest. He earned a BA in history from Bowdoin College, studied for a master's degree in environmental studies at Evergreen State College, and in 2002 completed an MFA in painting from University of Oregon. His paintings have been exhibited nationally and internationally, and he is currently represented by Gallery Jones in Vancouver B.C. He is Editor of FATE in Review, a national journal dedicated to college-level art pedagogy.

Kevin teaches art at The University of Montana in Missoula, where he
lives with his family.

Artist’s statement

The trace of human intervention is common in the American landscape. Our view of nature thus cannot be wide-angle or unbroken, as it is crowded with discordant elements that often contradict and muddy our perceptions and expectations. We instead experience our surroundings selectively, filtering out what not necessary, ignoring what is irrelevant. Through this process of filtering, we experience the landscape not as a whole, but as a collection of instances, fragments, specimens and objects.

Often what is noticed and selected is dependent on the presence of a man-made element. The curve of a hill or the texture of vegetation is most visible when it is marked, divided or plotted. Such markers also situate the viewer: they offer scale, location and context. Despite very different value and worth assigned to each, nature and human activity are oddly interdependent. Together, they form fragments floating through our view.