Deborah Bell
18 Aug - 08 Sep 2007
DEBORAH BELL
"Objects of power: memory of metal, memory of wood"
August 18 - September 8
The Goodman Gallery is pleased to host Objects of power: memory of metal, memory of wood, a new body of work by Deborah Bell from 18 August to 8 September 2007. This exhibition of new bronzes and works on paper in various media opens at noon on Saturday 18th, on this day the gallery will have extended hours from 09h30 to 17h00. Objects of power: memory of metal, memory of wood closes on 8 September at 16h00.
Since 1997 Bell has been concerned with elaborating the artist’s debt to history, both as a visual and spiritual reference. Following on her examination of West African colonial and traditional images in her interpretation of Alfred Jarry’s character 'Ubu Roi' for the French play’s centenary, Bell has engaged in expanding the metaphor of a journey for the development of her art. Through her 'Displacements', 'Unearthed', and 'Sentinels' exhibitions, she has examined the continued layering of history in the great iconic images of past civilizations. The interdependence of spiritual and cultural values and the way in which successive generations of civilizations have ‘borrowed’ and built upon the visual expressions of these has informed an evolution of Bell’s figures for a decade. Object of Power brings a sense of culmination to all these journeys: an artist more at home with her clay and paper, more assured of the triumph of the spirit. These drawings of horsemen are not borne quietly along nor are they seen as weary of the trip. Strong, painterly marks reveal warriors in full charge of their steeds; and bronze queens are no longer on guard, but quietly meditating their universe from above. Here are bronze maces full of status and authority, and gilded images on paper full of the treasures of the past, but now displayed as the point of a journey, a destination.
The exhibition is full of work which speaks of both peace and victory, still in motion, but with the vigour of an artist in full flood; a thinker whose journey can by definition, never be over; but which has entered a new phase.
The range of scale is wider than on Bell’s last three exhibitions, and both drawings and bronzes vary from intimately detailed, smaller forms to very large and commanding presences. These are works which still reveal legacies of thousands of years of image-making in many cultures, but which also simplify many of those to express a personal stage in life’s journey: more a sense of identifying one’s place in the universe of iconography than struggling to emerge from it.
"Objects of power: memory of metal, memory of wood"
August 18 - September 8
The Goodman Gallery is pleased to host Objects of power: memory of metal, memory of wood, a new body of work by Deborah Bell from 18 August to 8 September 2007. This exhibition of new bronzes and works on paper in various media opens at noon on Saturday 18th, on this day the gallery will have extended hours from 09h30 to 17h00. Objects of power: memory of metal, memory of wood closes on 8 September at 16h00.
Since 1997 Bell has been concerned with elaborating the artist’s debt to history, both as a visual and spiritual reference. Following on her examination of West African colonial and traditional images in her interpretation of Alfred Jarry’s character 'Ubu Roi' for the French play’s centenary, Bell has engaged in expanding the metaphor of a journey for the development of her art. Through her 'Displacements', 'Unearthed', and 'Sentinels' exhibitions, she has examined the continued layering of history in the great iconic images of past civilizations. The interdependence of spiritual and cultural values and the way in which successive generations of civilizations have ‘borrowed’ and built upon the visual expressions of these has informed an evolution of Bell’s figures for a decade. Object of Power brings a sense of culmination to all these journeys: an artist more at home with her clay and paper, more assured of the triumph of the spirit. These drawings of horsemen are not borne quietly along nor are they seen as weary of the trip. Strong, painterly marks reveal warriors in full charge of their steeds; and bronze queens are no longer on guard, but quietly meditating their universe from above. Here are bronze maces full of status and authority, and gilded images on paper full of the treasures of the past, but now displayed as the point of a journey, a destination.
The exhibition is full of work which speaks of both peace and victory, still in motion, but with the vigour of an artist in full flood; a thinker whose journey can by definition, never be over; but which has entered a new phase.
The range of scale is wider than on Bell’s last three exhibitions, and both drawings and bronzes vary from intimately detailed, smaller forms to very large and commanding presences. These are works which still reveal legacies of thousands of years of image-making in many cultures, but which also simplify many of those to express a personal stage in life’s journey: more a sense of identifying one’s place in the universe of iconography than struggling to emerge from it.