Navarro 1

Montserrat Navarro

Professor Sean Russell

ART 160

19 September 2021

Jose Bellver’s A Conjugation of Light

When visiting the Studio Gallery in the Las Vegas Sahara West Library, I first noticed the

enormous, inviting doors that immediately greet you when entering the gallery. The inside is

rectangular with high ceiling walls. The walls are plain white and the art is hung at eye-level

with individual lights pointing directly at them. In the middle of the gallery there are seats for

people to sit at and analyze the exhibit or pieces of art. When I walked in, there were only two

people and they were both respectful towards the artist and his masterpieces. It was so quiet I

could hear the echo of my own footsteps. With just an overview glance at the gallery, there are

11 pieces of art that share similar patterns but differentiated in color and material. The entire

gallery was dedicated to A Conjugation of Light by Jose Bellver. Born in Spain, Bellver has been

a familiar face in Las Vegas since the 1970s. As a painter he has devoted awareness to color,

texture and value. Out of all his art pieces, the three that stood out the most to me are: Untitled

10, Sioux Council, and Amargosa Gate because of their unique elements.

The very first art piece presented, Untitled 10, stood out for

me instantly. It is a two dimensional drawing made with pastels on

paper. Jose Bellver drew lines and rectangles and subtly blended

them together to create a transformation that glows like the famous

Las Vegas neon lights. In this drawing, he presented a black

background with a sky blue rectangle and blue and red lines. I
 Navarro 2

noticed he layered the pastels. Bellver started with the blue rectangle and incorporated darker

blue colors as they merged in with the black background. This specific detail adds dimension and

depth into his art. He used tape on the outskirts of the canvas to perfect the black square

surrounding it. The lines he created were symmetrical like if he used a ruler. The colors of

Untitled 10 gave me Deja Vu and I felt very familiar with the colors and the environment the

artist was depicting. These artworks were inspired by the work of Marok Rothko where he

“focused on the perception of color through light and explore it as a spiritual consciousness.”

On the other hand, Sioux Council was different from Untitled 10 in many forms. Sioux

Council was made with oil on a larger canvas. The most obvious differences were: the size of the

canvas, the material used, and the colors. Bellver incorporated a

white rectangular in the middle with a variety of red and green tones

in the background. What differed the most to me between these two

pieces is how imperfect Sioux Council was depicted. I noticed a

messy, imperfect canvas with fingerprint stains and you can see

where he used pencil to outline the perfect lines. In the entire room,

this work was the only artwork with a white rectangle.

Finally, a third work of art, Amargosa Gate, was created with oil on linen. The patterns

and shapes stood out to me the most. The colors were used before such as green, yellow, blue,

and black, but the shapes were different. In his previous artworks he incorporated a horizontal

rectangular above the center of the canvas, in Amargosa Gate he made the rectangles vertical

with blurred lines. The vertical shape of the rectangle resembled a large door or a gate to me. He

used the entire canvas even covering most of its sides while Untitled 10 had tape around the

edges to keep the drawing enclosed. Bellver created two red lines at different locations of the
 Navarro 3

canvas and also different sizes. Though the lines of the colors

were the same, the shadows surrounding it differed with yellow

and black exteriors. The space of the canvas is used completely

with no empty space left.

After visiting The Studio Gallery, I left with so much

more experience and knowledge than I expected. I learned that

Jose Bellver, the artist that exhibited A Conjugation of Light, is a

professor at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas and originally

from Spain. Immediately I related to him being from Mexico and paving a way for higher

education in the United States. His art felt more personal to me and I enjoyed doing research on

Amargosa Gate and Sioux Council. I enjoyed analyzing every piece of art rather than glancing as

I usually do. With the terms I learned in chapter 1, I was able to identify certain key

characteristics in the art pieces that made them even more special. Jose Bellver sees his paintings

as a continuation of humankind’s need to create art throughout history and beyond. I can’t wait to

explore more art, deeper meanings and continue to grow my knowledge.