Rodrigo Bello's Gift

"Dreaming"

We all have gifts of one kind or another... music, public speaking, performing, helping, teaching, etc. It's what we do with out aptitudes and motivations that moves us into various career channels, hobbies or professions. An artists skill set includes having a keen eye, experience with the materials, and a sensitivity to proportion, to color and design. It's astonishing how an apparently simple confluence of light and shade, line, shape and form can evoke deep emotions. When an artist's work accomplishes this, we appreciate what he has done. He has taken his gift and utilized it, and in sharing the products of his imagination and labor we ourselves are uplifted.

"The Actress"

Friday evening I visited Trepanier Hall to experience the program What's Left: Lives Touched By Suicide Exhibition and the art exhibit that will be on display to the end of March. Before entering the exhibit hall, which I will write about sometime soon, I noticed paintings by Rodrigo Bello were on display in the small gallery. An artist from Santiago, Chili, I first encountered his work at the PROVE Gallery downtown in a show titled Transplants. Though his stay in the Northland was brief, the impact of his work has not been so.

I asked AICHO Executive Director Michelle LeBeau about the artist. "He has since returned to Chili, but he made a gift of his paintings to the American Indian Community Housing Association, and these works are now part of their permanent collection," she explained.

Here are some of the pieces from this collection. I share them with you that you might appreciate the stories they tell, but also be inspired to polish your own gifts and talents that you might make a small part of your world a better place.

Thank you, Rodrigo, for your generosity, and to AICHO for sharing your space with the wider public.

"Three Voices" (Detail)

"The Trapezists"

"Chess"

"My Nephew"

"Fishing Day"

"Fishing Day" (detail)