“I do not think about it, I do not plan it, it’s an unusual process.
“It depends on how I am feeling, the mood I am in, and which colours I have with me.”
Pictured: Belle uses “electrifying” and “contrasting” colours in her work.
Whilst she does not choose her palette deliberately, Belle tends to gravitate towards “electric” and “contrasting” colours, inspired by German expressionist Ernst Ludwig Kirchner, one of many artists she studied while at Aberystwyth University’s School of Art.
“It’s actually one of my art professors who introduced me to what influences the way I paint now, art movements such as fauvism, cubism and expressionism,” she said.
“I looked at all the masters, like Picasso and Gauguin. I studied their work profusely and drew a lot of studies. They are different bits of my practice that have come from this.
Pictured: Belle uses aspects of fauvism, cubism and expressionism in her painting
“The way I have been painting for the past four years all stems from those artists. It’s very cubist, with flattened perspectives and strong lines, like Picasso’s, which I was obsessed with for a while.”
It was, in fact, the Old Masters who helped ignite Belle’s passion for drawing and painting when she was younger.
“I got into drawing when I was a very young child,” she recalled. “My dad used to bring me art books and sketch books and tell me about the Old Masters. He said drawing was the most fundamental skill of painting and told me to draw the studies of the Old Masters in the books.”
Enthused by this new practice, Belle pursued it at school, first at Beaulieu and then at Aberystwyth, where she says she was taught by “amazing art historians, painters and professors” in an old manor house dating back to the first decade of the 20th century with an extensive art collections.
It is during her third year at university that Belle said she realised everything was about “art, art history and painting”.
“I love to write about it, I love to paint, it’s just kind of a natural thing that comes to me,” she said. “Whenever I am away, I always think about the galleries I can visit, which exhibitions I can go see. I always have a sketch book, and I tend to do a lot of drawing when I am away, I love drawing people. It’s kind of a lifestyle!”
While she predominantly paints portraits, Belle has recently been focusing on landscape paintings.
A keen snowboarder, she regularly works abroad on ski resorts during ski season. It was during one such season that she discovered a penchant for landscape painting.
“I was looking outside a window in Austria, and I decided to do an oil pastel drawing,” she said. “I enjoyed painting the colours in a kind of fauvist style. I thought, ‘I’ve discovered something new that I like’.”
“It’s really strange because painting landscape is completely different to drawing a person,” she continued. “With a portrait, you really study all the person – I do it with great naivety, I am trying to read them. My hand does all the work, I do not tend to think about it when I draw a person. For a landscape, there’s less pressure to capture something, it comes to life with the colour.”
After commissions abroad – including a lion cub ‘King’ requested by Daniel Richardson (OBE) and Dame Virginia McKenna of the Born Free Foundation, which Belle is a proud supporter of, as well as a chalet and mural in Austria – Belle is now exhibiting at home.
Pictured: Belle was commissioned to paint the lion cub portrait for the Born Free Foundation
After taking part in Ian Rolls’ The Art Market exhibition this summer, she is looking forward to showing a series of seascapes at JARO as part of the Oceana exhibition open until Saturday 9 November.
“I am really excited to exhibit with an acclaimed artist like Nick Romeril,” she said. “It’s great to work with Jasmine Noel [the owber of JARO], as the gallery showcases amazing local artists.”
The paintings include scenes from Gorey, Anne Port, Beauport, Rozel Bay, Portelet and Mont Orgueil, Belle’s favourite place, which she painted in shocking pink.
Pictured: Belle’s shocking pink Mont Orgueil painting makes part of her JARO exhibition
“I enjoyed doing them all,” she said. “I was an only child, so I used to pretend I was Robinson Crusoe when on the beach,” she said. “All these beaches are beaches that mean something to me, like they mean something to everyone on the island.
“I love painting them and I love drawing them from life, so I hope this comes across. I have such a love for them, and they have such a big meaning to me, so the paintings are quite nostalgic and personal.
“Some of them are electric colours and contrasting colours. With my colour palette, I hope people will look at them in a different way. I am excited to see what people think and how they will react to them!”
Belle is currently exhibiting at JARO Gallery in York Street alongside Nicholas Romeril for ‘Hidden Depths’. “Together, their works create a compelling dialogue on nature’s beauty and the urgent need for conservation, immersing audiences in a journey that goes beyond the surface,” the gallery said.
The exhibition runs until 9 November.
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This article first appeared in the October edition of Connect Magazine which you can read in full below.