Universal Bendel

Dan Bendel May 20th 2026

The torus or flowering mind. A story reveals it self or many stories. The flowering cabbage? The unconscious/ conscious constantly flowering forth from the unconscious to become conscious. Time reveals it or is it in the constant now? A week of diary entries becomes one moment.

From 2016-2021, I made Posters for the Musician and community based collective Undergrowth. Making colourful eye catching, original art for their monthly gig.  Work by Daniel Bendel

I made a story stick in 2023-24 (see above), the idea was to get as many people to tell a story about the stick and its figures, I asked mentors and collaborators to tell a story. The results were varied, from strange Sci-Fi, fables, realism, shaggy dog story to folk story. This was part of a develop your creative practice bit of funding I got from Arts council England.

What happened in the workshop’s: - I took the students at Weymouth college through a series of exercises, starting with comic book style consequences, freewriting, Mandala making for wellbeing, 3 panel cartoon drawing, using narrative and storytelling techniques. I encouraged students to delve deep and to think of questions of change, telling their own stories of change. All these drawings and stories will be complied in a zine to help, as a toolkit to inspire young people in hospitals, going from child care to adult care. So storytelling could be helpful to a young person fed up with explaining themselves. So making their story could help them articulate themselves in a different way and be shared with hospital staff. A collaboration with Weymouth college students and Arts in Hospital, Dorset. 2024-2025

I started making an art Journal or doodle diary this year along side a writing journal. It helps me process the day and unwind. The images can be day to day biographical, or off the head abstract or contain an interesting idea or just plan soothing. There is no limits, although the one main theme is that the drawings are all contained in the circle or mandala motif. I also may write a title or poem to accompany the drawing. I explored the mandala in my DYCP and completed a course on making and understanding healing mandalas. See below for more images of that course.

Welsh Mountain Muse!

Misty Wales, Mountain Muse!

This a sequence of photography called Portals of Nature. Photographs taken in and around North Wales.

The work ranges from story sticks, story stick illustration of Jung's 12 archetypes , experiments with chess pieces, carvings and their comic books, and Naked Tuesday paintings. All by Daniel Bendel

Daniel Bendel 2024

Dan also held a workshop with adults and children later in the year making small comic stories about their connection to the ancient Landscape. (see a few photos of the day above)

Heart and Soul: Trinity in the Community.  I was an artists on a community project that began with workshops, that included teaching comic strip making, letter and relief carving  with the community and led to creating five (comic book inspired) carved oak panels about the history and community connections with the building. On permanent display at Trinity arts centre, Bristol. 2018 ( photo credits with Heart & soul label Trinity Arts Centre Bristol)

Here’s two pages from my comic book about the South Dorset Ridgeway called A Ridgeway: Going back along by Dan Bendel 2016 . It was part of an exhibition to engage a local audience in the ancient history of the ridgeway. The two pages show two characters talking about flint knapping and modern technology. I did a flint knapping course as research for the project. As the images show the flint axe inspired my comic.