Trevor Bell was one of the most successful younger generation painters to arrive in St Ives in the 1950s, attracted by the presence of the 'middle generation moderns' such as Peter Lanyon, Patrick Heron and Terry Frost, as well as the rugged Cornish landscape and the sea.
Nature is an important element in Bell's work and like nature it is harmonious and full of balance. 'We all have an inbuilt need for harmony and the structures that create harmony,' Bell has said. 'Basically art is an affirmation of life.' In 1960 Bell hit upon his single most important innovation. In a radical rethinking of painterly practice he began to make works that were not confined by their frames but instead made the frame an intrinsic part of their design. These canvases, combining their dramatic shapes with special attention to line, colour and texture, are a unique aspect of Bell's works and have sparked an ongoing investigation into the mechanisms of painting itself.
