statement

"HUMANS ARE CREATURES OF STORY, SO STORY TOUCHES NEARLY EVERY ASPECT OF OUR LIVES. ARCHAEOLOGISTS DIG UP CLUES IN THE STONES AND BONES AND PIECE THEM TOGETHER INTO A SAGA ABOUT THE PAST."  
Jonathan Gottschall, The Story Telling Animal/How Stories Make Us Human

My work uses bits and pieces of visual history, the "stones and bones" of memory to suggest a narrative, remix our stories and attempt to engage the viewers associative responses…memories and stories that are at once forgotten but familiar.

After years of studying cultural, dream, mythological and religious symbols, I am beginning to believe that the most interesting signs are the images that appear and keep pressing on one's mind with no explanation—unexpected but oddly recognizable visions that flash across the brain when words and phrases like "doubt," "reality TV," "turn to salt" or "separation of church and state" are heard…or the nascent compositions that appear while revisiting the pages of vintage Mad Magazine or hearing the memorable Da-Da-DaDa-DaDa theme song from the Rocky and Bullwinkel Show.   Honoring these puzzling visages maps the direction that I have begun to follow. In very simple terms, I want to make work that combines ideas and imagery generated through study and research with ideas and imagery that are felt, intuitive and enigmatic.

I welcome provocation and puzzles. I would like my work to confront the viewer simultaneously with beauty and awkwardness and to mediate grace with humor. I want to achieve a weird elegance.

ABOVE ALL, I PLACE GREAT TRUST IN THE VIEWER.

bio

born: 1952, Beaver Falls, Pennsylvania

education

Carnegie Mellon University, MFA, 1979
Edinboro University of Pennsylvania, BFA, 1975
Edinboro University of Pennsylvania, BS, Art Education, 1973

selected awards/honors

Dorothy L. Stubnitz Professor of Art, Carnegie Mellon University, 2002
Ryan Award for Excellence in Teaching, Carnegie Mellon University, 1999

selected publications

re(Collection): memory and narrative in recent work by Patricia Bellan-Gillen Handwerker Gallery, Ithaca College, Ithaca, NY, 2012
Stealing Stories/New Drawings by Patricia Bellan-Gillen; University of North Carolina/Asheville, Asheville, NC, 2011
Review/Patricia Bellan-Gillen at Pittsburgh Center for the Arts, Kristina Olson, Art in America, 2009

selected solo or two-person exhibits

Center for Drawing Research, University of the Arts London/Wimbledon, London, UK, 2013, 2011
Susan Tinney Contemporary, Patricia Bellan-Gillen/Recent Work, Nashville, TN, 2013
Heike Pickett Gallery, Cosmologies, Carol Prusa and Patricia Bellan-Gillen, Versailles, KY, 2013
Elzay Gallery, Beautiful Stories (Remix), Ohio Northern University, Ada, Ohio, 2012

selected group shows

Woman Made Gallery, Public/Private, Chicago, IL, 2013
Kipp Gallery, Fauna: Figuring and Fathoming, Indiana University of Pennsylvania, Indiana, PA, 2012
Gallery 61, Muse, New York Institute of Technology, New York, NY, 2012
The Warhol Museum, Gertrude's Lot, Pittsburgh, PA, 2011