American, b. 1934, Centerville, Ohio
Lives and works in Minneapolis, Minnesota

Hazel Belvo is a painter who sensuously captures the natural world and the human psyche (specifically the feminine psyche) in her works.

A recurrent subject for Hazel Belvo is Manidoo-giizhikens, the 400-year-old gnarled cedar, once called by tourists the Witch Tree and now recognized as the Spirit Tree. It powerfully claims a majestic place of honor on the northernmost shore of Lake Superior and for the Ojibwe people who share its home. In her monumental-feeling expressionistic paintings, Belvo plumbs the tree’s emotional potential, finding in its twisted torso depths of sorrow, endurance and even eroticism. Rather than landscapes or forest vistas, her Spirit Tree paintings are portraits of an ancient soul wrapped in a carapace of living wood.

Belvo states, Observation of nature and mythology reflect my interest in nature, spirituality, empowerment and identity. I have been called an artist who represents both a strengthening influence in society and a proactive agent of social change. I work in specific places in the world exploring nature and place and I work in my studio where I explore the feminine psyche and archetypes of women in large scale figurative paintings.

Hazel Belvo artworks can be found in numerous private and public museum collections across the country, including the Minneapolis Institute of Art, the Walker Art Center, the Weisman Art Museum, and Minneapolis College of Art and Design, located in Minneapolis, Minnesota, as well as the Minnesota Museum of American Art, Saint Paul, Minnesota, and the Tweed Museum of Art, Duluth, Minnesota.

Click here to see Hazel Belvo and Marcia Casey Cushmore’s work