AGENDA - United Kingdom, Arts

Deborah Bell: A Far Country

15 June – 14 July 2012 at John Martin Gallery, London.

Deborah Bell, Sometimes I feel the Kingdom is Now, Mixed media on paper 120 x 120 cms. Courtesy of John Martin Gallery.

This summer John Martin Gallery will present the work of South African artist, Deborah Bell in a major solo exhibition in June, and two large installations at the Glyndebourne Festival. Internationally recognised, Deborah Bell's work is in the collections of the Museum of Modern Art New York, The Smithsonian Institute and the National Gallery of Art, Washington D.C, and the Hara Museum, Tokyo. Bell is also widely known for her collaborative projects with William Kentridge and Robert Hodgins between 1986 and 2008 which produced a body of etchings, installations and films.

In recent years Bell's practice has increasingly drawn on the spiritual legacy of ancient civilisations. This enduring presence, something once described as evoking a 'mystical godliness', is now a central aspect to all her work. Defining herself unequivocally as an artist in Africa and often working on a monumental scale, Bell achieves an overwhelming sense of strength and permanence both in her drawings, etchings and paintings as well as in her bronze and clay sculptures echoing her belief that the artist must endeavour to 'materialise what exists, and what has existed for all time'. The presence of symbols, texts and recurring motifs seem to invoke ancient memories, as if the act of making becomes in itself, a spiritual rite and a way of connecting to some resonance that exists across time. That sense of permanence that pervades her work is there, simply because it has always been there.

Deborah Bell
Discoveries in the words of a song or poem, in her widespread travels and in her personal experiences, Deborah Bell shares in her work her own intimate awareness of spirituality and the sacred. In her monumental sculptures and paintings, and across the mediums of drawing and printmaking, Bell's abraded, time-worn images reach back through collective memories and across a wide sweep of cultures and histories. Her work is both immediate and timeless, utilising a process of layering, shaping, erasing and reworking each piece until it resonates with the emotions that initiated the work. Since leaving art school in Johannesburg during the early 1980's, Bell has built up an international reputation through solo exhibitions, group shows and collaborative projects. Her work is held in the collections of the Museum of Modern Art, New York, The Smithsonian Museum and National Gallery of Art, Washington D.C and the Hara Museum, Tokyo.

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