Epiphany Art
Jennifer Bell
Jennifer Bell is an East Midlands artist with a professional practice spanning mural painting, portraiture, stained glass and sacred works — with solo exhibitions at Peterborough Cathedral, Wells Cathedral and Southwell Minster.
Mediums: Oil · Water-based paints · Stained glass
Themes: Biblical prophecy · The Eucharist · The numinous · Trompe l'œil & illusion
Location: East Midlands, UK
Available for all types of commissions
About Jennifer
Jennifer Bell has been a professional artist all her working life, having drawn since the age of three. She studied Fine Art and sculpture at degree level, spent nine years in advertising as a graphic artist, and then went freelance — taking on book illustration, children's games and mural painting. Mural work has since become her main focus, in churches as well as residential and commercial properties.
Her exhibition record is significant: solo shows at Peterborough Cathedral (2019), Wells Cathedral and Southwell Minster, and work accepted for all the Chaiya Art Award shows. She's a Full Member (the highest level of membership) of the Society of Equestrian Artists and exhibits regularly with them. Her work has been shown at the Mall Galleries and the Osborne Gallery, London.
Jennifer has also taken on stained glass commissions for churches. She works within the realist tradition — painterly rather than photographic — and is particularly known for her trompe l'œil murals and interiors.
In their own words
"I try to make meaningful work, but also, in practice, it needs to be good to look at. My commercial work matters deeply to my clients — they are living with it — and my personal and spiritual work has to first attract the viewer or provoke their curiosity before they can engage with it more deeply. I use visual metaphors a lot, whether in a still life or a seascape, and the title is often the portal to understanding the image.
"I believe that the imagination is a language whereby we can understand and convey things of faith, especially the numinous and the mystical. Art — visual art, poetry, music — is the imagination's vehicle, and God can speak to us through it.
"I love the concept that we are separated from the Kingdom of God only by a wall that is sometimes low enough to see over, or thin enough to sense the presence of the Holy Spirit."
Faith and the creative act
Jennifer's faith isn't always visible in her professional commissioned work — but it underpins it: in the way she understands her clients, exercises her imagination, and brings a love of metaphor to everything she makes. In her personal and sacred work, though, the numinous and mystical are direct subjects. She holds that the imagination is itself a theological faculty — a language in which God can speak, and through which the proximity of the Kingdom of Heaven can be felt and depicted.
Selected works
