ARTIST STATEMENT :

The ‘AS WHITES ‘group shown in my last exhibition at the Millennium, and recently exhibited at the Leeds University Gallery as ‘NOTHING EXTRA‘ proved to be a very difficult act to follow. Because the works are so closely related they inevitably make a very unified space and statement when seen together even though each canvas was made as a solo work, and of course I would have liked to come up with an equivalent to that position if at all possible.

Great ideas are one thing, and what happens is another, and although I gave myself a totally new proposition i.e. to fully use the edges as a way of projecting the picture surface and to carry edge colour as a truly operative factor, the newness of that carrying form has demanded an open ended curiosity and excitement as to what was appropriate within my own terms...

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This then is a group of works each of which is its own exploration, linked by differing uses of the edge, and having different degrees of input from the inescapable fact of living in such a powerful area together with the influence of my own working history.

I hope they are all responsible to painting as painting above all.

Trevor Bell. 2009

"Your paintings are unique as the canvas is shaped, even the edge; as you say the “deep edge” has colour. Moreover, I am sure you realise and have been told that the work is heraldic.

To me, the paintings are much more: heroic with colour, shape, gesture and form; an art without epoch, timeless.

I can not believe that after the Leeds and London exhibitions and major publication that you have a major exhibition in St Ives. We wish you well and admire your tenacity and endless energy."

Excerpt from a letter to Trevor Bell from Roy Slade, former President of Cranbrook Academy and Director of The Corcoran Gallery, Washington D.C in response to seeing the work in this exhibition. Roy Slade is an Artist, Curator and Writer.