Lydia Bell is an artist who has just finished a foundation course in South Eastern regional college who hopes to move on to studying Fine Art at Ulster University. Lydia’s work focuses on nature and animals, inspired by her surroundings. Lydia spoke to the Jumble about her artwork and the lock down.
I would describe my work as expressive with movement. However, it’s also a major focus of mine to make sure that my work has an informative quality to it. I am inspired by my surroundings, mainly from looking around at the family farm I live on and the rural landscape that accompanies it.
The passion I portray through my work is what makes it more personal, I look at subjects and messages which I then try to get across to the viewer through the visuals that I create. For example, I ran a virtual exhibition over lock down on my Facebook page with the message of positive farming behind it.
Lock down has made me look at things in a new way and prompted me to take more time to explore my surroundings in greater detail than before. This has led to my work blossoming in a new direction- suddenly I’m using a lot more bright colours, as well as more expressive marks within my paintings.
What I love about the local art scene is how it allows me to understand how differently each individual artist sees the world around them, and how that viewpoint translates into their preferred medium and art style. It’s so important for the viewer to see things through the artist’s eyes.
You can check out more of Lydia’s work on Facebook and Instagram.
The Jumble 