It has been a busy year for John Tuomisto-Bell. The Chicago-born, Arizona-based sculptor recently exhibited at the inaugural Scottsdale Ferrari Art Week and concluded a solo exhibition at Bisbee’s Artemizia Foundation. His next project, a collaboration with Cruz Gallery in Santa Fe, New Mexico, is set to debut this August.

Meanwhile, the sculptor—whose career in the arts began over three decades ago—also runs a full-service art foundry in Phoenix. Since opening in 2001, Tuomisto-Bell Studio Foundry has been the go-to spot for sculptors of prestige. His most notable client? Acclaimed sculptor and apprentice to Frank Lloyd Wright, Heloise Crista.

Currently, Tuomisto-Bell is casting his latest body of work, titled “Walking the Path.”

Depicted in the fractured faces of weathered-looking bronze figures dipped in liquid-esq lava hues is what Tuomisto-Bell believes to be at the forefront of mankind—intelligence, violence and inherent aggression.

“These seem to be some of our strongest characteristics, yet paradoxically some of our weakest,” he says. “I am conflicted with our cruelty yet see beauty in the simple acts of human nature. Voicing these passions through simple icons—the lone figure, an isolated head—is a way to communicate on a visceral level an understanding of truth and emotion.”

We recently met with the artist to learn more about the man behind these figures.

Q&A With Sculptor John Tuomisto-Bell

What draws you to sculpture?

I think it’s the visual presence that sculpture demands, the experience one can have with it, walking around it, touching it, etc. I once had a professor at Arizona State University say to me, “Not everything is art, but everything is art supplies.” I love the idea that one can adopt almost any material in the sculptural world, and we have to keep adding.

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What inspires you the most?

I think humankind is my inspiration, and I think it’s the darker elements of this existence that I am constantly drawn to—man’s aggressive nature, society’s inconsistency, LGBTQIA+ and minority issues of all kinds, racism and exploitation. Wealthy individuals take advantage of wealth and power, which curtail all of the above. I feel it is an obligation to tackle these issues in a different medium in the hopes that positive insight can be gained. A favorite quote by Charles Bukowski sums it up—“An intellectual says a simple thing in a hard way. An artist says a hard thing in a simple way.”

If you could say one thing with your art, what would it be?

I believe this goes back to Bukowski, putting complex issues into, say, a lone walking figure or an isolated head in a way that is personal to me from an aesthetic and intellectual level that then can be shared and experienced with others. The work does not have to be experienced the same way, either. We all come from different experiences and backgrounds, so each individual can bring something different to the art experience. I hope that I can provide the information to that viewer so maybe it can strike a chord on any level, even if unintended.

Go to tuomistobell.com for more.