Works on Paper

Recent works on paper by Larry Bell will be presented at Frank Lloyd Gallery from February 8 through March 8. The dramatic collage works display an expansive spatial sensibility. Bell's illusionistic space is complemented by a dense array of color, achieved by his use of vaporized metallic particles on the surface of the collaged elements. All works are mixed media on paper, the next step in the artist's continuing and inventive process.

Larry Bell, best known for his investigations of the complexities of highly refined surface treatments of glass, has an extensive history with collage, as well. The recent works on paper, made by a process of laminating layers of film, acetate and paper, incorporate the artist's phenomenal sense of space and illusion. The works are also infused with rich color relationships, and saturated with metallic iridescence. The artist has used large sheets of handmade paper from Japan.

Bell is one of the most prominent and influential artists to have come out of the Los Angeles art scene of the 1960s, first showing at the Huysman Gallery, and then at Ferus. He became associated with the most important movements at the time, such as Light and Space art and what was described as "Finish Fetish" (a term coined by the late critic John Coplans). Bell has continued to investigate the complexities of highly refined surface treatments of glass, as well as large-scale sculptural installations.

Larry Bell was born in Chicago in 1939, and currently resides in Taos, New Mexico. The artist now maintains studios in Taos, New Mexico and Venice, California. Having grown up in the San Fernando Valley, Bell attended Chouinard Art School in Los Angeles from 1957 through 1959, where he was a student of Robert Irwin. He was extraordinarily successful as a young artist, and showed regularly at Pace Gallery in New York between 1965 and 1973. In September of 2005, Pace Wildenstein presented a show of works titled "Larry Bell: The Sixties".

His work is in public collections throughout the world, including The Museum of Modern Art, New York; The Albright-Knox Gallery, Buffalo; Art Institute of Chicago; Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York; Los Angeles County Museum; Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge; Museum Ludwig, Cologne; San Francisco Museum of Modern Art; Stedelijk Museum, Amsterdam; Tate Gallery, London; Walker Art Center, Minneapolis; and the Whitney Museum of American Art.