In 2015, Ibell was granted an artist’s residency in Assisi, Italy, where he was exposed to the work of Italian Renaissance Masters, who were influential in the development of his practice. By using religious and mythological tropes in his work, Ibell explores how the tradition of narrative painting can operate within a contemporary secular context.
Ibell’s work is also evocative of the work of Surrealists René Magritte and Giorgio de Chirico in its concern with psychological environments. His works are preoccupied with the interplay between the mundane and the strange, and are filled with double meanings, shifting between reality and illusion, dark and light, past and present.
Landscapes like Final Reflection (2021) contain panels of colour that break up the sparse and imposing environment to create a dream-like scene. The desolate space inhabited by a long-shadowed figure probes the relationship between the physical and subconscious self.
Similarly, the idea of containment is a recurring theme in Ibell’s work, particularly as expressed by motifs of caged birds, bound books, and brick enclosures. The works House at Night and House at Dawn (both 2021) at first resemble innocuous domestic scenes but there is a disquieting effect in the illusionary perspective and the oppressively large walls, allowing no obvious entry or exit.
Stylistic Development
Alan Ibell’s early works were monochromatic, illustrative paintings. Over time, this style has gradually developed to become more abstracted with fewer elements. The effect is a more subtle narrative where patches of tone, panels of colour, bricks, jugs, and figures are reduced to simplified components, all adding to the otherworldly quality of his paintings.
