BEEL'S works are fascinating because he overturns the academic approach to realism that postulates that one should start with a fully formed composition then meticulously render it. Instead, the american-in-exile chooses a more difficult path to painting; each work becomes a leap into uncharted territory of composition and content. Why would..Read on
BEEL'S works are fascinating because he overturns the academic approach to realism that postulates that one should start with a fully formed composition then meticulously render it. Instead, the american-in-exile chooses a more difficult path to painting; each work becomes a leap into uncharted territory of composition and content. Why would should he do this? It is because Beel is looking for a reality that is more than just what he observes. The artist explains: "I start with something I find beautiful and focus on that because I need too…we all need beauty, but I also find that beauty alone isn’t true enough to life. Life involves layers of ugly as well as beauty, and it involves the strange way our minds make connections between things that aren't necessarily connected, and it involves so, so much more. I want that 'more', and I know I won’t get closer to it by drawing a little line around 'less' and then coloring it in."
DURING Paul Beel's 25 year career as a practicing artist he has gained a reputation as one of the most interesting contemporary figurative artist in Italy and abroad. Beel's work, which can generally be described as a meditation on the importance of beauty despite the often bleak world in which we may encounter it, has been widely published, exhibited and aquired. The artist has won the Premio Celeste Prize, the Travel Award at the National Portrait Gallery in London and the Premio Bozzolo amongst other prizes. The Museum of Modern European Art in Barcelona has acquired several of his paintings for their permanent collection, and his work is included in important private collections including the Bennetton collection and the Tullman collection. His work has been reviewed in "Arte" magazine, "Poets and Artists", and published in numerous catalogs.
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