"Ink & Steel" by John A. Bell & Jeremy Grand

An exhibition by John A. Bell and Jeremy Grand

Saturday, August 9th, 2025 from 12:00pm - 2:00pm

Saturday, August 16th, 2025 from 12:00pm - 2:00pm

Artist Reception: Sat, August 9th from 12:00pm - 2:00pm

ABOUT THE SHOW:

A relationship between three- and two-dimensional art....

John A. Bell

John Bell is an artist who reclaims salvaged metal to create sculptures. Using braised and welded steel and copper etched with acid to produce textural qualities, his first series of fourteen sculptures depicted the human head. Since then, John’s art has evolved and expanded to include more abstract themes. His most current work includes pieces created with steel from demolished buildings and industrial scrap materials. By allowing the metal to react to the environment as well as to chemical applications, John creates surface textures of deterioration that add mood and meaning to the sculptural shapes. Selected pieces of John’s work can be viewed currently at the b.j. spoke gallery in Huntington, New York. His work was shown in the Creative Mischief Pop-up Art Exhibition at the National Academy Museum and School in Manhattan, and his sculptures have been selected four times for juried art exhibits at the Southampton Cultural Center.

Steel is a beautiful material that can be twisted, bent, and hammered into shape when heated red hot. It does not give up easily, but requires work to make it into what you wish. When one learns how to defeat steel’s resistance and to form it as one pleases, the results are gratifying. Iron ore from the earth has become a material for art. Once in the hands of man, steel is found everywhere in daily life. After it is put to use, steel reacts with its environment, and its surface can go from a lustrous gray to a deep rust brown, eventually acquiring a deeply pitted moon-like surface. The beauty of demolition or found steel is the endless variation in its color, shape, texture, or origin. Steel material rescued and used to create sculptural pieces is in keeping with the Brutalist period of sculpture creation. Surface textures of deterioration add mood and meaning to a sculpture. Newborn steel has no history, but used steel has provenance.

There is vital warmth and genuineness in used steel. Its surface tells a story about where it has been over the years. Now a new story begins in the hands of a sculptor.

Steel sculptures using raw, untreated, reclaimed material may appear primitive. Lines are created from misshapen pieces of steel whose surface texture and color force the eye to follow each line from beginning to end. The emphasis is to be informal, creating a piece that is not polished nor has a look of perfection. The elements of construction are left to stand naturally, and the steel will speak however it chooses.

When taking a piece of rusted and multi colored steel, I ask, Where will you take me? Are you the beginning or the end? What must I do to make you a complete thought?

Instagram: @jabellsculpt

Jeremy Grand

Jeremy Grand is a pen and ink illustration artist from Long Island, NY. He holds a BFA from SUNY Purchase, 2003. His work illustrates snapshots of places, people, mythology, and exaggerated spaces and items that are imaginative, humorous, or communicative on social or personal issues. His style in highly detailed, often colorless pen and ink illustrative that invites the viewer to linger, grin, and relate. Jeremy has been featured at many venues, galleries, and exhibitions, as well as book covers and albums, and participates in annual art fairs.

This body of work is my most recent, with responses to personal experiences, current events, and pure imagination.

http://www.jeremygrand.com

Instagram/Facebook: @jgrand42