Lisa Bell graduated from Pratt Institute in Brooklyn, NY, with a BFA in Painting and a History of Art minor focusing on Early Christian and Medieval Art. Her works fuse these two fields of study, combining heavy, visceral fields of color with illuminated manuscripts and texts taken from liturgy, music, and Scripture. She uses traditional scripts and color symbolism, but non-traditional materials and a heavy-handed, painterly style. These seemingly disparate elements reflect a fundamental paradox of Christian life: to be in the world, but not of it. In her work, Medieval mysticism meets blood-and-guts faith, in the present moment, where time touches eternity, where prayer and human longing touch God. Her illuminations are as deeply rooted in centuries-old manuscripts as they are in the world in which we live, move, and have our being. Lisa currently lives and works in Hartford, CT.