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About

StrangeCompost is the art
of Peter Bell and his studio.

You can find me here:

Instagram
 

 

 

I am self-taught as an artist. A late-bloomer some might say—having done very little to nothing with art until I was 26. I began to sketch and paint as means of escape from myself and the world around me.

The thirty-plus years I have been on a journey of personal exploration as a way to allow my creative soul to flourish unfettered. The result is a body of work that I have just begun to share with the world. My work is an amalgamation of many disciplines. I work both traditionally, digitally (often infusing the pieces with my poetry, photography and found objects) and with AI-generation (to create certain aspects of collages) to create mixed media metaphors that help explain the world around me.

The arts are not a way to make a living. They are a very human way of making life more bearable. Practicing an art, no matter how well or badly, is a way to make your soul grow, for heaven’s sake.
— Kurt Vonnegut

From there a friend suggested I do something with my new found talent, so I shifted into the world of graphic design and art direction where, through trail and error, I was able to teach myself a profession in the world of advertising and design as a way to make ends meet.

 

In doing so, I have been able to amass a body of work that has been recognized both nationally and internationally as a creative director/art director/designer. My commercial work has been recognized by such fine institutions as Communication Arts, Graphis, Print Regional Design Annual, The One Show, HOW Design International Awards, Step Design 100 Showcase, the ADDYs and even Dirt Rider magazine (for Product of the Year).