Daniel H Bell

Daniel H Bell’s paintings are based on the physicality of humans and other animals. The ambiguous figures that appear in them stem from various personal encounters at home and out in nature. The predominantly small-sized pieces revolve around a cast of hybrid creatures, rotting surfaces and miscellaneous body parts. Bell works intuitively, embracing accidents, forging juxtapositions through a mixture of realism, caricature and abstraction. 

The variation in the handling of the paint is as important as the oddness of the characters that are depicted. He pushes together a mixture of substances (acrylic, oil, varnishes, gels) and uses the unpredictability of their interactions to help direct the work. The imagery that Bell creates usually veers toward the recognisable forms of human faces, native wildlife and anything that his subconscious drags up in between. There is always the presence of death and decay, with the fractured, metamorphic quality of his paintings hinting at environmental destruction as much as uncanny horror.

Biography
Daniel H Bell studied Fine Art (Painting and Drawing) at Glasgow School of Art, and then Digital Practices at Norwich School of Art and Design. His work progressed through sculpture, video and installation before settling on stop-motion animation and ultimately a return to painting. 

Bell was awarded the Contemporary British Painting Prize in 2024, having also been shortlisted in 2022. During this period his work has been included in The Horror! at Project 78 Gallery (St Leonards-on-Sea) AIR Open at Rogue Artists’ Studios (Manchester), Living With the Past at Cupola Contemporary Art (Sheffield), the Society of Scottish Artists Annual Exhibition and the Derwent Art Prize. He has previously shown his short films at the London Short Film Festival, Filmfest Dresden, Flatpack Festival (Birmingham), Another Hole in the Head Film Festival (San Francisco) and Antimatter Media Art (Victoria).