Dana Bell
A painting can be as comforting as a sweater on a cold day. The colors can make you remember the tablecloth on your grandmother’s breakfast table, or the dress you wore to make yourself feel secure on your first day of daycare.
The sources of my paintings are films or photographs which evoke these memories. Using color and perspective to evoke mood and emotion, I recreate the images, appropriating them, while maintaining the universal, human element that attracts me to them in the first place.
I am working towards a show
in Santiago, Chile,
at the Museum of Contemporary Art, featuring film-screen-sized pieces.
Two are
based on images from Truffaut’s “400 Blows”, the story of Antoine, a
young boy
whose family’s neglect leads him to petty crimes. Similarly, I remember
going to “the village”
of my suburban Detroit town to shoplift after discovering that my
parents were
smoking pot after I was put to bed. One scene I’m painting shows
Antoine and
his friend walking hurriedly away from the building with the hot
typewriter
blending in with extras. I am not specifically interested in the boys’
crime so
much as I am in their being lost in the crowd afterwards.
website: www.danabell.com
RESUME
One Person
Exhibitions
Dana
Bell: Recent Paintings,
David Klein Gallery, Birmingham, MI,
July 2002
Dana
Bell,
Scott White Contemporary Art, La
Jolla, CA, September 2001
Iconic
Images,
David Klein Gallery, Birmingham, MI,
May 2001
Five
Shows in Five Days, Burke-Peterhans
Studio, Detroit, MI, April 2000
Eastwick
Gallery,
Chicago, IL, March 1998
Empty
Bottle,
Chicago, IL, November 1994
Planet
Ant,
Detroit, MI,
February 1993
r
Group Exhibitions
After
Effects, Museum
of
Contemporary Art, Santiago, Chile, September, 2008
Collide, McCaig Welles Gallery, Brooklyn, NY November, 2008
Fake
Blood,
UFO Factory, Detroit, October, 2007
Black on
Black,
UFO Factory, Detroit, September 2007
Whatever
Goes,
McCaig Welles Gallery, NYC, September
2007
Forever
Home,
Little Cakes Gallery, NYC, July 2007
Beastyfeast:
Our Changing Relationship to Animalia, Arlington
Center for the Arts, Arlington, Massachusetts, November 2005
Delicate
Kinship,
haNNa
gallery, Tokyo, Japan, September 2005
Forever Home, haNNa Gallery,
Tokyo, Japan, May 2006
Future
Friends 4000, Field in Connecticut,
August 2004
Maine
College of Art Thesis Exhibition, Portland
Yacht Services, Portland, ME, May 2004
Imitations, Soo
Visual Arts Center,
Minneapolis, MN, January 2003
Artist
and Model,
Scott
White Contemporary Art, La Jolla, July 2003
Imitations, Schlusser Gallery,
University of Michigan,
Ann Arbor, June 2002
Beat
Surrender, Modern Culture Gallery, NYC June
2002
Figure
Painters, David
Klein Gallery,
Birmingham, MI, February, 2002
Imitations, Detroit Artists Market,
Detroit,
January 2002
This is
the Modern World, Modern Culture
Gallery, NYC, November. 2001
37TH
Juried Exhibition, The Parrish Art Museum,
Southampton, NY, October, 2001
Made In
Michigan, Paint
Creek Center for the Arts, Rochester, MI, July, 2001
Wayne
State Undergraduate Exhibition, Wayne
State University, Detroit, 2001
Winter
Exhibition, SOMA Gallery, La
Jolla, December - January 2001
In the City, Modern Culture Gallery,
NYC, September
2000
Smashfest,
detroit
contemporary, Detroit,
June 2000
Our
Visions: Women in Art, Oakland
Community College,
Farmington Hills. MI, May 2000
Wayne
State Undergraduate Exhibition, Wayne
State University , Detroit, April 2000
Green Team
Benefit,
detroit contemporary, Detroit, April
2000
Immigrant
Suns Field Recordings,
detroit
contemporary, Detroit, April 2000
Actual
Size: 8 1/2 x 11, detroit
contemporary, Detroit,
February-March 2000
Puppet Art, Bittersweet Coffeehouse,
Detroit,
February 2000
Art about
Food, Food about Art, Small
World Café,
Detroit, December-February 1999-2000
WCBN
Public Radio Art Benefit,
Nectarine
Ballroom, Ann Arbor, MI, October 1999
Girlee
Show, 1312 Griswold, Detroit, June 1999
Wayne
State Undergraduate Art Show, Community
Arts Gallery, Detroit, May 1999
Anti-Auto
Show,
Alvin’s, Detroit, March 1999
Flipped, Cup-a-Cino, Grosse
Pointe Park, MI, January 1997
Nine New
Names,
Eastwick Gallery, Chicago, December
1995
International
Women’s Day Show, Mentalfloss Gallery,
Chicago, March 1995
Group Show, Mentalfloss Gallery,
Chicago, May 1995
Weft,
Woven and Dovetail, Mentalfloss Gallery, Chicago,
June 1995
Eastwick
Gallery,
Chicago, February 1994
Education
Maine College of Art,
Portland, ME, MFA May 2004
1st
Year Advisor, Joanne
Greenbaum, 2nd Year
Advisor, Vito Acconci
Wayne State University,
Detroit, MI, BFA Magna Cum Laude, 2001
Hunter College, New
York, 1997-1998
Columbia College,
Chicago, 1994
School of the Art
Institute of Chicago,
1992-1993
Scholarships
and Awards
Maine
College of Art Scholarship, 2002 - 2004
Harry and
Olive Cummings Scholarship, Maine College of Art, 2002-2004
James F.
Duffy Travel Grant for research in Art History, 2001
Sowinski
Scholarship for the Arts, Wayne State University, 2000
Michigan
Competitive Undergraduate scholarship, 1999
Wayne
State University Governors Scholarship, 1999