Deborah Bell latest Taxi artist
The tenth in the David Krut Publishing series of Taxi art book monographs has just been released, and focuses on the work of Deborah Bell. Deborah Bell is a leading Johannesburg painter and sculptor whose work is created in dialogue with multiple worlds, texts, histories and consciousnesses.
Bell's drawings, etchings and monumental clay sculptures reveal "a spiritual practice" in which the role of the artist is to "co-create the world, to materialise what exists and has existed for all time". Inspired by museum objects from ancient civilisations, including African, Babylonian and Egyptian, her work incorporates multi-layered references to past and present worlds. This connection to ancient sources and memories is linked to her spiritual beliefs and how she defines herself as an artist in Africa, working with materials such as clay and bronze.
The book is the first overview of Bell's body of work and includes a variety of authors and different forms of writing. The text for the book is by Pippa Stein, who has incorporated texts by Bell's collaborators William Kentridge and Robert Hodgins.
A conversation on her Unearthed sculptures with Achille Mbembe, renowned social theorist from Wits Institute of Social and Economic Research, opens up important debates around histories, geographies and artistic appropriation. An Educational Supplement devised and written by Ruth Sack of the IMBALI Visual Literacy Project accompanies the book.
For further information, please contact Siobhan Mcusker at David Krut Arts Resource on Tel: (011) 880 4242. Email: Siobhan@davidkrut.com.
