Wendy Bellermann has contagious energy, enthusiasm and excitement about her art and the artistic community that nurtures it.
Here’s Bellermann talking about the 22nd Studio Tour SOMA (Nov. 1-2) and Unveiled, its concomitant major exhibition—she is this year’s events co-chair. The exhibition of about 70 artists, is running now through November 2. Curated and designed by Jeremy Moss, Unveiled covers the walls of two floors of the Herb and Milly Iris Gallery.
“What a kickoff! So much art, so much joy—the opening reception of Unveiled at SOPAC proved that art thrives in community,” Bellermann said. “If this opening night is any sign, the 22nd Studio Tour will be unforgettable.”
Bellermann’s energy and enthusiasm comes through in her paintings — be it her lively animal paintings, high-contrast black-and-white portraits of classic blues and jazz figures—Muddy Waters, Billie Holiday–or her arresting homage and modern interpretation of the cave paintings of prehistory.
The black-and-white music portraits might veer into the abstract as the planes and angles of the face come forward, especially in her powerful Son House, he is a figure of some power himself. Dramatic and arresting, sometimes reminiscent of Kabuki masks, Bellermann translates her passion for the music into the visual realm.
While her three areas of subject matter use different mediums and approaches, there is a through line: a deep-felt connection to the individual—human or animal. Her signature piece is Rooster King, a slightly off-kilter rooster, brilliantly colored, clearly with attitude, and totally engaging. Both the original painting and prints have taken up residence in many area homes. Popular at area art events, Bellermann loves exchanges with people out to see art.
“When I see someone’s eyes light up and a piece sells, there is great gratification. When someone buys a piece, that means they want to live with my art,” Bellermann said. “I’ve made a connection.”
Her robust sense of humor often breaks out, especially in her critters. “Art’s not supposed to be funny, which is sad,” Bellermann said. “I don’t want my animals to look ridiculous, but I want their personalities to come through.”
Bellermann grew up on the north shore of Long Island, at home with both shoreline and woods and creatures both wild and domestic. There were forests and farmland animals. She had dogs, a pony, a donkey, and always horses. (She is an equestrian to this day.) She was always drawing to make sense of them all.
Bellermann never went to art school. She has taught composition at New York University, where she received a Masters in Philosophy in Medieval English Literature, and at SUNY Albany. (Her undergraduate degree is from Maine’s Colby College.) Bringing up her three children, she became close friends with fellow moms. Those moms were also artists, encouraging Bellermann to develop her lifelong love of making art.
Today, she is a full-time professional artist, highly active on the area scene. Bellerman, now 58, shares a studio with her husband — jade sculptor and Fairleigh Dickinson University biology Professor Josh Stout — at East Orange’s Manufacturers Village. She is not only a key mover behind Studio Tour SOMA but also the Warren Court Art Walk, and she shows at the Manufacturers Village Open Studios (Oct. 18-19) and Maplewood’s Affordable Art Fairs.
Bellermann is all about connections. She is fast to name the area artists who gave her generous advice and encouragement— Sybil Archibald, Jenn Malone, Leslie Goldman, Joy Yagid among them.
It’s Bellermann’s connection with the cave art of the Upper Prehistoric Period about 12,000 years ago that astonishes. Maybe her affinity with these anonymous artists was preordained. They and Bellermann share an understanding of the essence of the animals they paint and a respect for their power.
“I was studying cave art and the more I looked, the more I realized they were brilliant artists,” Bellermann said. “Don’t dismiss it as primitive. It’s very sophisticated—their grasp of line and shading, how they showed mass and strength with their lines.”
Bellermann often works in acrylic and uses other modern materials. But her materials might go a bit further back—as in 51,000 years back. She paints her cave-inspired art with pigments that she makes herself from the clay and sandstone and other rocks of her childhood haunts. She collects, grinds, and sieves the raw materials into powders. Neatly labeled glass jars holding different tones and shades line her studio shelves. Some, such as the green of malachite or the blue of lapis lazuli, she must import.
“Jay Pingree’s (another SOMA painter in Studio Tour) wife, Karen Shelby, brought me chalk samples from the White Cliffs of Dover. I use it for highlighting,” Bellermann said.
She treats her canvas or canvas board with fiber paste to suggest the roughness of cave walls. Like the prehistorics, she might carve, scrape into the images to reveal lighter substrate.
Some of her imagery is homage. Some of it more modern as with Mirrors, the two intertwined deer, their coats broken into facets of earth tones, not unlike the angles and planes of say that Son House portrait. “That image was a gift, it just came to me,” Bellermann said. The deer enrapture at the Unveiled exhibit.
And then there is Adornment (stone pigment, charcoal on fiber-paste treated canvas) her lineup of three exuberantly decorated women strutting their stuff. “They’re saying ‘Look how beautiful we are,’” Bellermann said. Simultaneously ancient and modern variations of the Venus of Willendorf, the trio are Bellermann’s lively answer to narrow scholarly interpretations of that approximately 30,000 year old sculpture. There are many delights and insights in Bellermann’s wonderful art. Studio Tour days, find her at 18 Warren Court, South Orange.
