Imagine sitting in a comfortable black chair in a spacious white room with perfect flat light surrounded by a symphony of small, colorful collages produced by the same accomplished hand using the same spontaneous process.
The effect is thoroughly delightful and sometimes overwhelming as long-time Taos artist Larry Bell invites you to a rhythmic dance through "Passages from the Fraction Series," a rare studio tour at Larry Bell Studio Annex, 233 Ranchitos Road (at Ranchitos and Salazar).
Simultaneously, a similar show opens at New Directions Gallery, 107B North Plaza, Friday (June 16) to run through July 13. The public is invited to a reception at the Bell Annex Friday, 5-7 p.m.
The installation in the Bell Annex is a panorama of about 400 "Fractions" that beat with an extraordinary pulse in your peripheral vision, a rhythm in the composition of the room that is quite distinct from the individual notes. Entirely surrounded by the "Fractions," one is not only the audience but part of the concert.
Bell said he conceived of the "Fractions" project in 1996. It was an innocent beginning inspired by a desire to dean out his storage area and throw out the flawed images he had created in the 1980s. He cut them at random into small squares and discovered that the shards were much more interesting than the larger compositions. Instead of shucking them into the dust bin, he decided to recycle. By adding new layers, old lessons were reborn into new abstract collages, transparent and opaque, with shifting waves of iridescent light.
Like layers of an archaeological dig, these shards of Bell's earlier work are the culmination of years of experimentation with glass sculptures tinted by thin layers of vaporized metals, which evolved into "vapor drawings" on paper and then his elusive "mirage paintings" created in an industrial process called "vacuum plating." Under the heat of lamination, up to 40 layers of different materials merged to create tapestries of absorbed and reflected light. Now, these squares of artistic history have been fused over a layer of watercolors to create spontaneous, intuitive and improvisational compositions.
If you've ever wanted to own a piece of Bell, now is the time. These complex collages are not only charming, but affordable. No doubt the public will snap them up. "From your mouth to the ear of God," Bell said in a wry tone. He has never sold well in his hometown of Taos, he said, "and I've been here 27 years."
Ironic, because Bell is an internationally acclaimed contemporary artist who was recognized by artists of the Los Angeles school of "light and space" for his construction of elegant, geometric glass sculptures and installations. He has received honors and awards from Copley Foundation, Guggenheim Foundation, National Endowment for the Arts and, in 1990, the State of New Mexico Governor's Award for Excellence and Achievement in the Arts. His work is represented by prestigious galleries and museums all over the world.
His culmination of collages spans his artistic explorations from 19962000. In the large room of his annex, same-sized white squares are mounted with white matting pins directly on the wall without the interference of frames or glass so you can breathe on them, -peer into their depths and discover miniature worlds, canyons of memory, nostalgic highways that disappear around hidden curves of tomorrow, uncurtained windows that open to past and future eruptions, galactic space within the shimmering cosmic egg, easels sprouting vegetation from lush experience, firebirds, cliffs and waterfalls, geologic time warps and spatial illusions, an infinity of mirrors and returnings.
"As the body of the work grew and my interest in the variety of imagery became intense, I decided to set a goal for the effort," Bell said.
"Ten thousand unique pieces seemed like an ambitious and interesting quest. At this time I have curated a bit more than 8,000 of the works, so the end of that quest is in sight."
The pieces are pinned in a straight line, to be read left to right - or right to left. In the smaller room they are stacked in straight rows to cover an entire wall, a quilt of colorful haikus contained by a border of older pieces, ellipses on velvety black paper that, by the heat of lamination, spread their shining layers in shadows and echoes of form.
This is the dance of life, the warp and woof of energy and matter in constant flux, revolving through the universe. By recycling his own perceptions, the artist has made visible what the eye seldom perceives - the reconciliation of opposites, the balance of darkness and light suspended in a moment of truth.
You could see what the individual pieces have in common. They are Me the ocean-green melodies of whales synchronized in harmonious balance by a fertile burst of red or orange, frequently shaped by the right angle of a brush stroke that feathers and fades to the opposite side.
Bell said he was galloping along laminating chips onto paper until he introduced the element of watercolor, which slowed the whole thing down. "They can't be moved until they dry," he explained.
First he lays down the watercolor by soaking the paper and dropping the color through a hole to establish the underlying form. How it spatters and wanders is determined by the texture of the material. " it became a more studied process," he said. " it was an interesting change in the rhythm of the work cycle and how many pieces I could make in a day (Up to then he had been producing about 36 pieces a day, he said.) "Of course, the harvest wasn't 100 percent."
"The spontaneousness came from the speed," he continued, "which was counter-pointed by the spontaneous placement of a chip that had some matching traces of the watercolors. Pieces of various media integrated themselves in a totally rational way so they were symmetrical and looked right."
"Because the chips were already made," he explained, "that aspect of the dance became quite different. My personal feeling of engagement has changed. I find more surprises. I don't want a sense of mastery over the materials. When there's a feeling of beginning, that's very sensuous, almost addictive. I want some credible tension between what I'm doing and what's going to come out of it. That's what I mean by engagement."
The individual pieces are cloaked in primal mystery, intellectual, sensual and spiritual. It doesn't get any better than that.
"I wanted to make a piece that was larger than the sum of its parts, and surround the latest body of work with pieces from a much earlier period," he said. Bell has a delicious sense of color and the collective chorus of work is a sensual and rhythmic interplay through shared or contrasting colors and forms.
Bell said he considers each gallery presentation a part of the learning experience. "It's an extension of the studio, an opportunity to learn as a part of the work process. That's what I do. For more information, call 7582771.
Bell has recycled about 8,500 images so far, he said. "More layers
means more serendipitous results." This continuous exploration and playing with perception is grounded by ellipses or sections of grids. "The grid gives it some charm, some interesting shapes," he said.
The wall-sized conjugation would look perfect in a room of its own at the Harwood Museum. You could sit there all day and let the various pieces sing to you. You could contemplate the cosmology, the nowness of infinity, the paradox of chaos and form, the fog of obscurity, the shimmering layers of silence.
Gallery owner Cecilia Torres says the installation at New Directions will be a collaborative process. "I've never done a collaboration like this with another artist. I only enhance their art and show it to the best of my ability, but it's their energy, their work. We just facilitate the sale."