From classroom to gallery

ANGELICA (GEL) WOOTTON (OGC 2015) AND ISABELLA (BELLA) GREENE (OGC 2015), FOUN DERS OF GELBELL Our time at The Geelong College provided us with an amazing opportunity to harness our love for creativity. During school, we constantly collaborated and bounced ideas off each other for projects and potential creative endeavours.

After graduating in 2015, we both knew that we loved design and art and really wanted to advance this into university and our careers. We wanted to be hands-on designers, knowing there wasn’t necessarily one job title that fitted where we wanted to be and what we wanted to do.

We both completed degrees at RMIT University. Gel graduated with a Bachelor of Interior Design (Honours), which offered a wide lens to explore different design opportunities. Bella began a degree in Communication Design, but found she enjoyed working more hands-on with materials, so went on to complete an Associate Degree in Furniture Design. RMIT allowed us to expand our practical expertise and industry experience. It was an incredible resource to push our creative thinking and problem-solving, as well as being exciting and inspiring collaboration within the industry. After cutting our post-uni travels short due to COVID, we returned to Australia and used our time in lockdowns to set up Gelbell and pursue our business full-time.

As soon as the world reopened in 2022, we moved into our current Melbourne studio and began to cement our name in the industry. Although we had a good grounding from our university courses, we learnt as we went, creating our product, sourcing suppliers, marketing, and expanding our skills to develop our business. Embracing an unconventional attitude, Gelbell is the name we jointly work under as full-time artists. We find inspiration from collaborating with one another, constantly and continually creating. Working on the same pieces simultaneously, we overlap and use this collaboration to create spontaneous and exciting outcomes. We are inspired to generate works that embody a sense of playfulness, whilst evoking a reflection of the self in a moment in time, sparking a sense of connection and satirical recognition between the viewer and the artwork.

We love that Gelbell can offer us a platform where we can experiment, have fun and develop our creative paths.

From classroom to gallery

Creating our own brand has provided us with a space to do what we love. We are forever growing and developing as artists and as a partnership, keen to expand our connections within the industry whilst moulding our business to suit our needs and passions. We’re really looking forward to further growth, eager to see where it leads us as we keep learning and pushing ourselves.

We’re very grateful to have found our space within the creative industry where we can have fun with work and do something we love.

Throughout our journey, we’ve found the best advice we’ve been given is to ‘do what you are passionate about’. Our creative passion drives us to continue to grow and make Gelbell a success, simply because we love what we do.