Antique

This is a review that some would say is about art in its rawest form. And they would be correct. Others would say it's about art in its purest form. And they would also be correct.

What this is, is a review of an exhibit of paintings by Tyler Bell currently on display at Small World Coffee on Witherspoon Street in Princeton, titled "Sunday Drive-Places and Places By Tyler Bell."

Tyler is autistic. He is also an artist. His art is not what we're used to seeing in museums, on gallery walls, in coffee shops across America. It is not representational. It is often not even what we might call abstract. But what it is, is the art spirit deep within this 22-year-old painter breaking through the barriers of autism and manifesting itself on canvas in bold colors and shapes.

Because Tyler is verbally handicapped, his mother, Liz Bell, tells his story. She speaks of him being diagnosed at age 3 and how she and her husband, Peter Bell, have endeavored to keep Tyler "immersed in the real world."

A quote attributed to Johann Wofgang von Goethe, "If you treat an individual as if he were what he ought to be and could be, he will become all that he is capable of becoming" seems to be one that guided Tyler's parents in his upbringing.

The paintings on display in this exhibit are all bold both in design and color and are windows through which we're offered glimpses into Tyler's imagination. He often paints plein air with Lambertville artist Gary Giordano and many of the paintings on display are Tyler's interpretations of specific sites in Lambertville: A laundromat, a church, the 5 & 10.

"Yellow Building With Chimney" is the Laundromat. There's a "House With a Green Roof" and "Blue Green House With Black Roof." And the painting from which the exhibit draws its title is a grey car with black windows and jazzy white spoke wheels.

The faces part of the exhibit is comprised of portraits about which Liz Bell points out, "the eyes are always blue, the lips are always red. It's just what comes through in his art."

On exhibit are "Yellow Face," "Hispanic Woman," and "Blue Ribbons" which was taken from a picture of a classic princess.

"Girl In Green Shirt," in this exhibit is his portrait of Catherine Haggerty, a middle school teacher in Jersey City who worked along with Tyler in designing the motif and painting "Star, The Wishing Ox" that was part of the Hopewell Valley Stampede and was on display throughout the summer on Pennington-Rocky Hill Road.

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