Katie Bell

Though she makes what many see as sculptures—abstract, whimsical forms, assembled from a disparate assortment of utilitarian materials, displayed freestanding or wall-mounted—Katie Bell considers herself a painter. Concerned with composition, balance, and color, she claims, “I see my work [as] having everything to do with abstract painting except the paint and stretcher bars.” She replaces pigment on canvas with plaster, foam, drywall, paper, and a dizzying range of other materials, which she keeps in a pile in her studio. Her smaller compositions, featuring odds and ends artfully embedded in plaster, serve as studies for her large-scale installations. Bell traces her inspiration back to the gutted walls of her childhood home during its renovation. She found history, memory, and formal beauty in their layers, which she builds into all of her works.