Painted in blood red colours, or featuring sharp, stark outlines, Michael Bell's artwork is not designed for comfort.

Instead, Autre – the Beverley painter's new exhibition at Artlink, Princes Avenue – aims to explore human emotions.

The show's title means "other" in French – a term often used to describe something without an immediate explanation.

"If I was to describe the work, I would say it is 'raw'," Michael said.

"I am not trying to make something that is beautiful – if I was trying to make pretty pictures, I would not have used this subject matter."

The artist, who signs his work Bael – a conflation of his first and second names – has opened his first solo exhibition at the gallery.

Michael, 27, a former fine art student at Hull College – where he studied between 2000 and 2003 – is showing 11 artworks, a mix of paintings and pen and ink drawings.

Despite his studying at college, he regards himself as "self-taught" – having developed his own particular figurative style.

The works, the oldest of which date back to 2006, show a series of human figures. Some are close studies of faces, others nightmarish images of screaming heads or figures with crosses or slashes where their eyes should be.

In some of the paintings, a compass has been used to score the surface of the paint.

Michael, whose work has previously been shown as part of a group exhibition at Signal, a gallery in East London, says he is influenced by Expressionism. This art form, which surfaced during the early 20th century, used distortion and exaggeration for emotional effect.

"When people see the work, they often think I am into heavy metal or horror, but it's not the case at all," said Michael.

"It's all about the human figure. It is not like a portrait – I am not trying to represent a person – it is the emotion that I'm exploring."

*Autre is on until Thursday, April 1. Opening times Monday to Saturday, 10am-4pm, at Artlink, Princes Avenue, Hull. Entrance is free

Call: (01482) 345104