QUEEN NANCY BELL

“Queen” Nancy Bealuh Marian Bell was born in 1961 at Women’s Medical Center on 33rd and Henry Avenue, Philadelphia, PA to Dorothy Anne Marian Bell and Reverend Scott. She was raised by her foster parents, Alice and Tommy Burnette, in the Cobbs Creek neighborhood of Southwest Philadelphia. Bell attended Bryant Elementary School, Sayre Junior High School, and Dobbins High School, all in Philadelphia. She worked as an NTA at Germantown High School, and as a professional dancer in the 1980’s. Bell has three children, Lousevejo Carson, Meskin Bell, and Curtis Bell, and five grandchildren.

Bell has been drawing and painting since 1966, and remembers that her talents were recognized by numerous teachers, principals, and others at her school. She joined Oasis Art Center in 2005, where she worked until its closure in 2014. At Oasis she began titling most of her paintings “Jesus(es),” crediting their divine inspiration. Bell identifies, in her own words, as an “ordained Reverend, Bishop, Pastor, Preacher, Evangelist, Minister, Prophet, Deaconess, and Missionary,” and is also known as Pastor Nancy Burnett, Reverend Jackson, Reverend Scott, Pastor Bell Gray, and Pastor Walker.

Bell’s work has been exhibited at various venues throughout Philadelphia, including at Fleisher/Ollman Gallery. She has also exhibited at the Outsider Art Fair and Tompkins Square Library in NYC.