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Michels first inspiration was the work of her grandfather, Joseph Rinaldi. A young Michel would peek at his sketches, his notes, and his copy of Grays Anatomy, which she used to teach herself how to draw. This began her love of the human form.
Michel received classical training at both The University of Massachusetts at Amherst, and the internationally renowned Lorenzo de Medici School of Art in Florence, Italy. Following her time in Florence, she witnessed a wave of women in search of a voice for what they felt, experienced, and knew. Her art quickly grew into a mission of providing an in-your-face visual voice to women through her paintings. Bellici sees herself as a vehicle for something bigger, and believes that painting just flows through her hands.
Her work often consists of a female figure that interacts with writing, to further express what these women think and feel. Michel uses Leonardo De Vincis style of writing, from right to left, bottom to top, and backwards. The final work is an exploration of the individual that lays bare certain parts of the body explaining their story.
When Im painting and all of a sudden it starts to feel like Im breaking through something; says Bellici. I get emotional. I think it sucks, I end up hosing it down, adding paint, removing paint, sanding it down, rubbing the paintings down to see whats really there. Its a great metaphor for the emotional rawness that Bellici brings to her work.
She continues; Sometimes my skin feels like its on fire and my head is spinning. I feel like Im crazy. Painting is like drugs, only better. When I hit it, I dont even need to question it. I get into a temper tantrum of happy.
Art is a long tradition in her family. Growing up in an upstate New York family of artists, Michel Bellici was fortunate to know exactly what she wanted to do for the rest of her life from the time she was four years old. She began flipping through her grand fathers copy of Grays Anatomy and watching her father draw up blue prints and create renderings at his drafting board.
Michel is classically trained at both The University of Massachusetts at Amherst, and the internationally renowned Lorenzo de Medici School of Art in Florence, Italy. Following her university training, Michele moved to the quiet of the Pioneer Valley in Massachusetts, and the art Mecca of Northampton where she worked between Boston and New York.
Shes fulfilling her dreams as a full time painter with 14 exhibitions under belt. However, don't put Ms. Bellici in a box. She's also an accomplished music, fashion, and portrait photographer, as well as an art instructor.
In a sense, you could say that Michel started her career with finger painting, and has come full circle. One of the most interesting about Michel is that she paints primarily with her fingers. She prefers the tactile sense of interacting directly with the paint and canvas. It's this sense of connection that adds a magical connection to Bellici's work. In the same way her photography is all about the connection and interaction between people, themselves, and their surroundings.
Without a barrier between her hands and the canvas, Bellici's work is at once powerful and vulnerable, raw and exposed, revealing and hidden. Her human forms defy abstract indicative more of sculpture than a one-dimensional canvas.
While Bellici has exhibited her paintings and photography throughout the U.S. and Europe, she's new to the Brooklyn, and is focusing on New York City to expand her talent and the vehicle.
Michel Bellici
Brooklyn, NY 11221
413 923 8541
Email: studiobellici_gmail.com
or
Bellici_me.com
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