Featured Artist Bela Fidel

Artist Bela Fidel combines the spontaneity and unpredictability of encaustic with other materials to produce deeply textured and layered images. See more of her work by visiting her website.

 

 

Forty years ago, I would not have believed that I would become a full-time artist, unable to find my center without art. I would not have accepted the fact that without my creativity, I would be utterly lost.

 

 

Forty years ago, my passion lay with literature and music. Hence my B.A. in English and Spanish Literature from the Hebrew University in Jerusalem, and an incomplete M.A. in Romance Languages.

 

 

While living in Israel in the early sixties, out of the blue I bought a couple of 5″ x 7″ canvas panels and some oil paint. I painted my version of old houses in Old Jerusalem. Years later I returned to Brazil where I was born, and sought to take art classes. “For fun,” I thought.

 

 

I took the classes and for ten years I did a lot of painting at home. I sold my paintings and kept improving my skills, but I never took becoming a full-time artist to be my future. In my mind, it was not really a “serious” pursuit.

 

 

After those ten years I came to realize, without much thought or intention and somewhat to my surprise, that I had to continue painting if my life were to have meaning and if I were to be a centered person.

 

 

For the first twenty-odd years I painted in oils, spanning representational, surrealist and modernist styles. Then, a little over twenty years ago, I learned encaustics and gave it my all.

 

 

Approximately four years ago, I began adding other materials—plasters, compounds, collages, powders and decorative paints. My mixed media journey was born. I currently mix oils, encaustics, compounds and other materials as I am moved to realize a rich vision of my own.

 

 

I love to create texture and a depth of layers, including an elegant top layer that disguises much of the work that exists below it. This allows a number of the other materials underneath to peek through.

 

 

I challenge myself every day to reach further with my art. Some days I feel I am another step closer to what, at first, seems to be an abyss (and sometimes is!) I still feel that I have only touched the tip of the iceberg of what is possible.

 

 

A persistent slight dissatisfaction follows me into the studio six days a week, six to seven hours daily. This dissatisfaction is the gift that keeps on giving.

 

Artist Bela Fidel invites you to follow her on Facebook, Instagram and Twitter.

 

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