Barbara Head Millstein writes in her essay for the exhibition Interior/Exterior: Five Perspectives on Landscape Photography:

As a curator for that museum [Brooklyn Museum of Art] for over 20 years, I have followed the career of Ms. Bell with increasing interest in her maturation as an artist. Her concern for the effect of the forces of nature on the environment has produced several bodies of work, ranging from the devastating aftermath of major forest fires, lava flows and windstorms in locales such as Point Reyes, CA and British Columbia, to the palace and gardens of Versailles. Bell has even photographed images made available on the internet of Mars and Jupiter, in search of the chaos affected by natural causes. Her latest works are particularly dramatic, shot through a metal screen at the Santee Canal Park near Charleston, SC. The teasing effect of the screen begs the viewer to focus on a tear in its surface, revealing a tiny portion of reality, thus creating (as the artist suggests) an ambiguous environment and increasing an illusion or trompe l’oeil effect.

Karen Mazloff, writing for WIRE (New Hampshire publication) about Interior/Exterior: Five Perspectives on Landscape Photography exhibit at Lamont Gallery - Phillips Exeter Academy:

Another September 11 booklet…features the work of Karen Bell. Some of her wall-hung images are in color, others in black & white. All reflect the surreal forces of nature on the landscape. But it’s her series…at Santee Canal Park… near Charleston that really leap off the wall, very nearly grabbing the viewer by the throat. Here is nature brightly lit, yet still dark and mysterious. Tears in the metal screens serve as keyholes, revealing only tiny bits of what’s on the other side; in other images, they are literal translucent screens, with trees and vines that threaten to engulf, just barely contained.