About Bellanda

Bellanda ®

So, I sat down to write a quick little bio for my art websites, and as it turns out, this was not an easy task. Somehow writing the words, “American Artist living in Paris” struck something in me. Artist? As a result, this bio wasn’t written quickly, nor is it short, but it truly shows my journey as to who I am today.

 

I’ve had to reinvent myself many times during my life… as a person and even as someone who creates art. I’ve had internal battles as to what art is and to whether I’m even an artist. Mine might not be a likely story, but it has led me to where I am today creating artwork… artist or not.

 

I moved to France, knowing virtually no one and unable to speak the language. I had to escape a relationship that had turned so dangerous that it left me with a near death experience. It was strange, but looking down over my limp, hunched over body, I somehow knew everything would be okay. I felt safe, calm and utterly at peace despite what was going on below me. I mention this, because this would turn out to be a pivotal moment in my life and would help me survive the next year or so in this new land. It is also what led me look at and feel art more intensely.

 

I was an elementary school teacher with ten years of experience and a masters in computers. I had always loved to draw and to take candid photographs of people. There was something about capturing a moment of truth that I had always seen as a quiet, observant and shy child hiding behind my mother’s leg… it was thrilling to see through the facades we create to get to something real. After my life in New York took a frightening turn, my photographs began to change, but not in the way I would have expected. They went from black and white portraits of people doing ordinary things, to abstract images with vibrant colors. I felt alive and my photos seemed to reflect that, even though they were just for me.

 

I had lived in Nice for about a year when a friend stopped by with a friend of his. He noticed my photos on a table, and the next thing I knew, I was offered a red carpet one man show for a new salon/gallery in the south of France. At first, I thought this person was joking, and then I thought he was insane because they were just unedited film photos I had taken to make a gift for a new special someone in my life.  After about a month, this stranger eventually convinced me to do the show. During the expo, a French couple came up to me told me that I should be giving out cigarettes to people when they left. I had no idea what they were talking about. I was puzzled further when the man winked as he said something about the best cigarette smoked is after good sex and that this was the best. What?

 

I looked around the room at my work and suddenly felt quite naked. Even though there wasn’t one image of a human being, or anything sexual in nature, had the photos revealed something else? Had my photographs become more about expressing what was inside of me, instead of the actual object I was photographing? Similar comments of the same nature of passion and love came from the other guests at the show. I could barely look at people without blushing. I wondered further if my near death experience and the fact that I could not express myself in French had something to do with this change in my photographs. Had my photos revealed my deepest secrets, things that I could not express in another form?

 

I believe humans are resilient and they can adapt when forced to find a new way to express themselves. Was this my new form of expression now that language had been blocked? People started throwing around the word artist to describe me when they would introduce me to other people, but I would cringe because I didn’t feel I deserved this prestigious title. I had only taken a few art and photography classes during my studies, and believed this did not qualify me as an artist nor a photographer for that matter.

 

I moved from Nice to the Paris region in 2002, and was told by a gallery that France wasn’t ready for the kind of abstract photographs I was taking and that even though the person speaking loved them, he said that French people wouldn’t know what to do with them because photographs weren’t considered art. He said that he didn’t have a category to put my artwork in. 

 

To that, I thought, isn’t art something that makes you see things that aren’t really there? Most importantly, doesn’t it spark your senses and make you feel? Isn’t it a way for people to express what perhaps they’re unable to do in words? Who decides what art is? I often ponder this last question.

 

Not long after, I saw a giant white sweatshirt with red masking tape taped in the shape of a cross hanging in the Pompidou Museum. The colors might have been reversed, but I digress… I thought, this is art? Why are my photos less art than this piece that’s hanging in one of the most prestigious museums in the world? Who decides? I realized it didn’t matter anymore, I didn’t want to stop creating. I loved how it made me feel and I loved listening to people speak about my creations. I did, however, stop looking to put my creations in galleries. My skin wasn’t thick enough to endure what artists and even writers have to go through to find acceptance.

 

After a couple of years, I moved from photographs to oil painting because I felt a need to add texture to my work. Photography no longer gave me the satisfaction I was getting earlier and I wanted to feel the movement of the brush on a large canvas. I needed a more active roll in the creation process. Led by music, and with no idea in mind when I begin any of my paintings, it was like a dance between me and my canvas and I absolutely loved this feeling. There is no other feeling like this. With each piece, I would get lost in the actual creation itself… and with each piece, there was a distinct moment when I would step back and know, it was done. A feeling like no other would wash over me, I would stand there looking at my new creation and think, I did that? My artwork had literally come out of my soul and reflected at times my joy, pain, or sorrow. I started to post my paintings online and would enjoy the comments, but still never looked to do anything with them.

 

Then, my health took a sudden turn. I fought through it, but there came a moment when I could no longer physically paint as I did without provoking a relapse of my illness. I had to adapt, yet again. Over the last couple of years, I’ve started dabbling in digital painting and mixed media, but my mind keeps going back to that question of what makes an artist, and even though my title here in France is officially Artist since I joined the Maison des Artistes, I would at times battle with this word.

 

Recently, I sat and looked at one of my unedited film photographs, the one that the gallery told me wasn’t considered art. This photo has been on my wall for the last 20 years. Every single person who enters my home notices it. From total strangers, like the men who delivered my couch, to friends, they have all spontaneously stopped whatever was going on to speak about it. They’ve debated as to what the actually subject of the photo was, each swearing to see something completely different. Complete strangers in a room debating about something I created is quite a thing to see. Only once did someone actually recognize the object that was photographed. More often than not, what the onlooker sees, often reveals something quite personal that they hadn’t even realized was on their minds until they spoke about it.

 

That’s art to me… You may hate or love what I did back then, or even what I do today, but the idea of creating something from nothing that can do that, something that can move people one way or another, can only be art. I will continue to do what I do, even if only for myself because it allows me to touch upon something that I’m unable to express in any other way. My creations have evolved throughout the different periods of my life and depending on what is going on in with my health. For the first time, I’ve even begun to have some fun with my new Collectible Characters to add some humor to all of the Covid lockdowns we’ve had here in France. I’m fascinated by the idea of NFTs and what they can do to the art world and to individual artists. 

 

So, with my background as an elementary school teacher who happens to have a masters in computers, do I belong with other artists. I guess that is for you to decide.

My journey up until this moment has led me to finally accept that either way, I’m okay with whatever you think.

Artist or not, this is who I am, and I’m okay with that, too.

I am my own creation, constantly evolving, and forever a work in progress.

 

All the best,

Bellanda ❤️