Bel Angeles — Claiming Space, Sharing Space

Bel Angeles — Claiming Space, Sharing Space - theHumm October 2023

By Sally Hansen

Art… and Soul

A small woman with a huge appetite for social justice, Valley artist Bel Angeles’ art aspires to conjoin her community life and advocacies with her creativity. She succeeds admirably. Her innovative and captivating art challenges us to examine our prejudices and stereotypes. Angeles deploys her artistic creativity in ways that delight us, challenge us, and open our eyes.

Her goal is to create art that initiates a dialogue about structural inequalities, hoping thereby to strengthen empathy and solidarity. In her creative efforts to entice us into a fuller appreciation of what it means to be privileged, she dances effortlessly between overt and subtle, between accessible and unconventional. She invents artworks that challenge viewers to participate in rating themselves on a scale of privilege. She creates recto-verso (two-sided) displays that beguile and entice us into looking for the hidden/deeper meanings in her paintings.

Everyone has a story. Bel encourages you to look beyond the surface — to see that there is more. Her works are a call to empathy. When you look at the flipside of her recto-verso work there is an “ah-ha” moment when you get it. Bel’s hope is that we’ll keep her message in our consciousness, and it will open our eyes and hearts to ways in which we can make a difference for all those who live in the margins.

Art is also her recreation and her therapy. Many of her vibrant abstract paintings reflect the joie de vivre she has maintained throughout an astonishing career as an international humanitarian aid worker, working with refugees and internally displaced people. She started painting in 2006 as a form of therapy during high-stress jobs in chronic emergency situations all over the world. Her first teacher was an exiled Karen refugee artist (the Karen are an ethnic nationality of an estimated six million people who primarily reside in Burma), and she continued to learn from practicing artists in the different countries where she worked and lived. Primarily self-taught, she starts intuitively, often gravitating towards mark-making, layering and texture.

Claiming Space, Sharing Space

In her own words: “I explore ways to ‘claim space and share space’, acknowledging my identity as a woman immigrant person of colour that gives me conditions of marginality but also privilege. I also explore the intersections of art and social justice, creating art based on reflections about structural inequalities.”

Personal privilege is associated with the distribution of wealth, opportunities, access and participation. Angeles was raised with her seven siblings by a well-educated and civic-minded family in Manilla where she enjoyed the privilege of earning a B.A. in Psychology at the University of the Philippines. After a decade of working in various jobs, she embarked on a challenging and highly rewarding career with postings around the world for international development and humanitarian work in the Philippines, Thailand, Myanmar, Indonesia, Uganda, Rwanda, Jordan, Canada, Southeast Asia region and the East Africa region.

Along the way she garnered a Master of Arts in Development Studies at the International Institute for Social Studies at the Hague in the Netherlands. Her name (Maria Belen Angeles) appears in three publications, based on research commissioned by the FAO of the United Nations, and by UNESCO, for whom she did a study on trafficking of women in Africa. Her astonishing CV summarizes her work history by stating: “My main technical expertise is in gender, gender-based violence and working with refugees. I have extensive experience in senior-level management, board work, independent evaluations and organizational development. I am an active roster member of CARE International for Gender in Emergencies Advisor posts in humanitarian settings.”

A socially just society gives everyone equal access to wealth, opportunities and privileges. Angeles’ interest in and fight for social justice has never waned. Since coming to Canada in 2012 with her Canadian husband, she continues to claim space for herself and all other marginalized persons.

Angeles shares space by amplifying voices. Her intriguing art is only one way in which she does so. She is rooted in community. Her actions reflect her strong belief that it is important to participate in and contribute to the communities of which you are a part. Since moving near Perth she has volunteered with numerous charitable organizations and arts groups. She has been a board member and volunteer at Lanark County Interval House. After years of volunteering with The Table Community Food Centre thetablecfc.org in Perth, she has just joined them as their Operations Manager and Acting Volunteer Coordinator.

As always, her art continues to flourish and nourish her. She is a member of Arts Carleton Place and the Smiths Falls and District Arts Council. As a member of OMMA (Ottawa Mixed Media Artists Association) she displays mixed media pieces that include themes of housing insecurity and women, as well as a selection of glorious abstracts that reflect her love of life and her intrinsic, indomitable optimism.

Although her home is near Perth, she now works out of her studio at the recently opened Artisan Village at the Falls in Smiths Falls. The spacious and beautifully lit building features ten rooms of various sizes, several of which are leased by other local artists. Bel’s works are beautifully displayed, her studio is spacious and comfortable, and she smiles when she tells me she has been able to reclaim two rooms in the house she shares with her husband, Kevin Malseed. The couple share their fervor for making the world a better place. He is the founder and still active with KHRG, a grassroots Karen-led human rights organization established in 1992 and now operating across rural southeast Burma/Myanmar. This is how and where Bel met her first refugee art instructor.

Perth Autumn Studio Tour

The weather forecast predicts this will be a fantastic Thanksgiving holiday opportunity to meet this gifted and dedicated artist/social justice defender/community advocate. Bel Angeles will be participating in the annual Perth Autumn Studio Tour on October 7 and 8 as one of seven regional artists at Studio 4 at 590 Brooke Valley Road perthstudiotour.com . Join her in her journey to claim space and share space, and enjoy her beautiful, original, inspiring art. Coordinates are on the back of her Artist Trading Card at the top of this page.WHO Bel Angeles

Artist Trading Card