Previously, Bella mused on New Zealand from afar. Now, living there, her work draws directly from the land and life around her, exploring quintessential Kiwi experiences through firsthand observation. Having grown up in the city, she approaches everyday scenes like catching Kina, or gutting fish with genuine interest and fascination, bringing a deep curiosity and fresh perspective to these moments.
Bella explores scenes from her home country of New Zealand. Picnic settings are conducive to a sense of familiar familial fun. Vivid color push the figure and landscape into new contexts carried by pattern, and playful surface treatment.
Bella explores scenes and moments from her home country of New Zealand. Bella approaches her canvases with more intimacy replicating nature with an energy and freshness channeled in this collection of vibrant oil scapes.
The Everyday represents moments taken from Bella’s home life as she interacts with the ever-changing environment around her. In this series, she takes everyday moments and elevates them to new heights through the intersection of memory and the imaginary.
Shocking Green is a series celebrating the zesty springtime color palettes of New Zealand pastures. Bella explores the variety and freshness of this color palette in this restorative and landscape-focused series.
The rock pool is a unique thing, it is a portion of the ocean made accessible, revealing itself come low tide. I had to know your rhythm, when would there be a place for me to stand?
I would. It was worth it, I could disappear I was quiet in awe of your beauty, your sound.
I walked the rocks for hours, each pool glittering until in view. Like candy in a crystal bowl the color within beams, rippling pattern moves with the water. Occasionally I’d reach in, interrupting your dance, there had been a shell so attractive I might take it. It never looked as glossy as it did in the water, dull in my possession. I could only enjoy the pool in a direct way, the wonder was the whole.
I can’t visit right now so I’ll create my own dance.
Trees are not impermanent things, they struggle up from the dirt, the same dirt as trees and other foliage before them. A sequence so elemental it endures unnoticed until we are cradled by the vines, stems, and leaves that thrust out in great plumes that form the canopy over us.
Trees are the bystanders in our environment, they coexist quietly taking command as the louder voices soften. Trees are wisdom, they reach upwards interweaving with one another, to speak a language we just can’t grasp.
The contemplative way of the tree is a posture we have lost in our time of immediacy. With this series, I aim to delve into the forest and keep walking emulating this subtlety in my work.
Stone lithography is a chapter of Bella Kimmel’s studio that has given her a focus on draftsmanship and material. In Printmaking Kimmel explores interiors and family using a smaller scale to communicate the intimate nature of these scenes.
The interior studies series explores the impact of light on the tone and temperature of the colors in three mantlepieces. The scenes are selective in their color palette as Bella approaches these quiet and meditative scenes.
