BIOGRAPHY
DEBORAH BELL
(b. 1957, Johannesburg, South Africa)
Deborah Bell is one of South Africa’s most celebrated contemporary artists. She works in a range of media on canvas and paper, produces dry point etchings and large-scale bronzes. Her earlier more political work has given way to a broader, deeper investigation into the border been mortality and immortality, matter and spirit, presence and absence, the quotidian and the mythic, the grounded and transcendent. In recent years she has developed an immediately recognisable visual language, her images simple, stark, symbolic – grounded, silent, still, poised. As Ricky Burnett has stated: at the very edge of time.
In her iconography she draws from a range of cultures (including African, Chinese, Egyptian, Greek, early Christian and European) and a range of philosophies (especially the Buddhist preoccupation with stillness and the shedding of attachment and the ego) and psychologies (more Jung than Freud) – but her work digs deeper, arriving finally out of an internal and personal place that Bell occupies in the world as an artist, a woman and an explorer. A central task is to make the unknown present – apprehended in a series of powerful images that are both of her and beyond her. Her earlier figures, characterised by entrapment (in the country, in the body), have given away to figures embodying the seeker – often accompanied by boats, horses, chariots. Images of lions, dogs, horses and angels recur. These are often intermediary figures between the physical world and a higher more spiritual realm. They are also aspects of herself – the powerful daemons that reside in all of us, which are often accompanied by solitary female figures, some full of assertive confidence, others more vulnerable and less sure of their agency. Bell is interested in the half-formed image – the unwritten, as yet unformed spaces we move towards in our quest for self-knowledge. More recent work has also become more concerned with surrender – to the higher self, the mystery of the universe, the simplicity of the present. All her art, she has stated, works towards the Zen mark: the single gesture of absolute presence. Her quest is ongoing – and has left in its wake a series of hugely powerful, totemic images from what Yeats called Spiritus Mundi.
Deborah Bell has worked with a great variety of media during her career and has collaborated on various historically important projects with contemporaries such as William Kentridge and Robert Hodgins. Bell received her BAFA (Hons) and MFA degrees at the University of Witwatersrand, and has been an artist working abroad and a lecturer at various South African tertiary institutions, including the University of the Witwatersrand. Bell lives and works from her studio in Magaliesburg, as well as being a collaborator at the David Krut studios on several projects.
2020
Sentinels (2020), Everard Read, London, UK
2019
Enthroned, Everard Read, Cape Town, South Africa
2018
Invocations to the Plate, David Krut Projects, Johannesburg, South Africa
2017
Uncovering Ancient Memory – 15 years of etching, David Krut Projects, Cape Town, South Africa
Recent Paintings and Sculpture, Everard Read, Franschhoek, South Africa
20162015
Renunciation, David Krut, Johannesburg, South Africa
2013
2012
2011
2010
2009
Flux, Goodman Gallery, Cape Town, South Africa
Collaborations, David Krut, Johannesburg, South Africa
2007
2005-6
2005
2004
2002
2001
2000
1998
1995
1989
1982
TWO/THREE PERSON EXHIBITIONS
2020
Investec Cape Town Art Fair, with Everard Read, Cape Town, South Africa
ODYSSEY, group exhibition, Everard Read, South Africa & UK
2019
Correspondences, with Ricky Burnett, Everard Read, Johannesburg, South Africa
UB101: A portfolio of etchings done in conjunction with Kentridge and Hodgins. Exhibited at the Grahamstown Festival and at the Gertrude Posel Gallery. Exhibition curated by Fiona Rankin-Smith.
1994
Lamentations, Art First, Cork Street. London, UK
1993
Portraits in the round, ceramic exhibition in collaboration with William Kentridge and Retief van Wyk at the Goodman Gallery, Johannesburg, South Africa
1992
1991
1988
1987-08
1985
1983-4
SELECTED GROUP EXHIBITIONS
2021
Masterpiece, Everard Read, London, UK
Myths, Martyrs, Monsters & Masterpieces, Everard Read, Leeu Estates, South Africa
Offering, Everard Read, Franschhoek, South Africa
2020
Investec Cape Town Art Fair, with Everard Read, Cape Town, South Africa
Gallery Opening Exhibition, Everard Read, Leeu Estates, Franschhoek, South Africa
Summer, Everard Read, Franschhoek, South africa
The Portrait Show, Everard Read, Johannesburg, South Africa
TINY2020, Everard Read, Johannesburg, South Africa
2019
Summer, Everard Read, Cape Town, South Africa
2018
Investec Cape Town Art Fair, with Everard Read, South Africa
2016-7 TACIT, a group exhibition acknowledging 20 years of conjunction and reciprocity at Dionysus Sculpture Works studio and foundry , NWU Gallery, Potchefstroom and William Humphreys, Kimberley, and Pretoria Art Museum, Pretoria, South Africa
2016
Winter Collection, Group Show, Everard Read Gallery, Cape Town, South Africa
2015
FNB Jo-burg Art Fair, Everard Read Gallery Booth, Johannesburg, South Africa
2013
2012
2011
2010
2009
2007
David Krut print workshop, UNISA Art Gallery. Pretoria, South Africa
2005
Works on Paper, Collaborative prints from David Krut Print Workshop, Franchise Gallery, Johannesburg, South Africa
David Krut Collaborations: 25 Years of Prints and Multiples, National Arts Festival, Grahamstown, South Africa
2004
2003
Earthworks/Claybodies, Standard Bank Centre Gallery, Johannesburg, South Africa
2000
1999
Emergence, Group Show, National Arts festival, Grahamstown, South Africa
Artery, A.V.A Gallery, Cape Town – in conjunction with the Goodman Gallery, Johannesburg, South Africa
Artists in residence, Standard Bank National Arts Festival, 25th Anniversary, Grahamstown, South Africa
1998
1997
The Gencor Collection, Sandton Art Gallery, and The Grahamstown Festival, South Africa
New Art from South Africa, Talbot Rice Gallery, Edinburgh, UK
Les Arts de la Resistance, (Fin de Siecle a Johannesburg), Galerie Convergence, Galerie Jean-Christian Fradin, Galerie Michel Luneau, Galerie les Petit Murs, Nantes, France
Not Quite a Christmas Exhibition, Goodman Gallery, Johannesburg
CRAM, A.V.A Gallery, Cape Town – in conjunction with The Goodman Gallery, Johannesburg
1996
Group Salon, Rose Korber representing artists at the Bay Hotel, Cape Town, South Africa
Common and Uncommon Ground: South African Art to Atlanta, City Gallery East, Atlanta, USA
Vita Awards, Johannesburg Art Gallery, South Africa
Tomorrow is Now, First Canadian Place and Knights Galleries International, Toronto, Canada
Barber Signs, The Standard Bank Gallery, Johannesburg, South Africa
Recent Drawings, Gallery on Tyrone, Johannesburg, South Africa
Ceramics Biennal, Sandton Art Gallery, South Africa
1995
The Art of Tea, Kim Sacks Gallery, Johannesburg, South Africa
Group Salon, Rose Korber representing artists at the Bay Hotel, Cape Town, South Africa
1994
Anything Boxed, Group Show, Goodman Gallery, Johannesburg, South Africa
1993
Vita Awards, Johannesburg Art Gallery, South Africa
Momentum Life Exhibition, Pretoria, South Africa
Internations of Millennium, Newtown Gallery, Johannesburg, South Africa
1992
Paris: The Catalyst, Alliance Francaise, Durban, South Africa
Looking at Art: Looking at Watercolours, Goodman Gallery, Johannesburg, South Africa
Vita Awards, Johannesburg Art Gallery, South Africa
Works made in August, Newtown Gallery, Johannesburg, South Africa
1991
Tiny Tapestry Show, Goodman Gallery, Johannesburg, South Africa
1990
Art from South Africa, MOMA, Oxford, UK
Standard Bank Drawing Competition, Johannesburg, South Africa
1989
African Encounters, Dome Gallery, New York and Washington, USA
The Little Big Show, Goodman Gallery, Johannesburg, South Africa
1988
Volkskas Atelier Award exhibition, South African Association of the Arts, Pretoria, South Africa
100 Artists Protest detention without trial, in aid of DPSC, Market Theatre, Johannesburg, South Africa
Artists for Human Rights Exhibition, Durban Exhibition Centre, South Africa
1986
4 UNISA Lecturers, Bloemfontein, South Africa
UNISA Art Lecturers, Pretoria Art Museum, South Africa
1985
11 Figurative Artists, Market Gallery, Johannesburg, South Africa
AWARDS AND MERITS
APSA Award for the Best New Signature, Ceramics Biennale, South Africa
Mamba Award for the Most Sustained Artist, South Africa
Merit Prize Winner, Volkskas Atelier, South Africa
Vita Quarterly Award, runner-up for Main Award, South Africa
SELECTED COLLECTIONS
BCE, Johannesburg, South Africa
Bell, Dewar and Hall, Johannesburg, South Africa
BHP Billiton South Africa Ltd.
Bristol Myers Squibb Corp.
Hara Museum, Tokyo, Japan
Johannesburg Art Gallery, South Africa
Johannesburg City Council , South Africa
King George VI Art Gallery, Port Elizabeth , South Africa
Legal Resources Centre, Johannesburg , South Africa
MTN Art Institute, Johannesburg , South Africa
Museum of Modern Art, New York, USA
National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C ,USA
Oliewenhius Museum, Bloemfontein, South Africa
Pretoria Art Museum, Pretoria, South Africa
Roodepoort Museum, Johannesburg, South Africa
SA National Gallery, Cape Town, South Africa
Sanlam Collection, South Africa
Sasol Collection, South Africa
Smithsonian Insitute, Washington, D.C, USA
Standard Bank Investment Corporation, Johannesburg, South Africa
Tatham Art Gallery, Pietermaritzburg, South Africa
Telkom UNISA Art Gallery University of Pietermaritzburg Collection, South Africa
University of the Orange Free State Collection, South Africa
University of the Witwatersrand Collection, South Africa
USA Friends of the National Gallery, Cape Town, South Africa
COMMISSIONS
1991
1994
1993