For over 30 years Mike Bell has created delightful art in every media.  His impulse is present across Hampton Roads.  Mike’s art can be experienced in Nauticus, Towne Bank, Hot Tuna, and other local and international businesses.  Often it is his touch that develops each environment into places we want to explore. This is art that moves beyond the traditional confines.  Mike’s sculpture of a wasp inspires service men aboard an aircraft carrier, his space ship is the film setting for alien invasion, and every year a titanic Mother Goose ushers children to scramble for eggs every spring at the oceanfront.  Art is life for Mike,  and life dances everywhere in his world.  

Mike Bell’s skill as a designer, architect and artist is as extensive as his body of work and as varied as the materials he uses to accomplish his art.  Every element is in play: paint and raw earth may scream a textured swath of color across canvas,  a flurry of glitter gracefully enlighten the dress of a 10 foot flamenco dancer, or heavy tons of steel and glass may become the light and space of a family home. Experience with engineering large projects has served him well while creating his newest sculpture, the great golden aerial that graces the ceiling of Waterside. With a wingspan of 18 feet this guardian hovers above.  Balanced and graceful, the avian’s glittering wings flow like windblown sheets of paper.  This beautiful bird evolves, adapts, is flexible.  The boneless wings flail and dance with their shadows  completely transformed from the foam, plaster, paint, wood and metal that generated them. The golden bird’s freedom is the same as the artists. He gives movement to what is still,  softness to what will not yield,  and makes what is heavy fly.  Now Mike asks you to enter his world.  Feel the freedom and lightness of his creation and give his golden phoenix a name.  - James Molloy molloyfineart@yahoo.com