Praise to the gods
Sentinels is an unconfortable artwork; a semi-circle with a variety of gods on a high pedestal. They wear a long robe and on top of their head a high, wide or long hat. This is clothing from another period of time. Faith is from another time, isn’t it?
I say this, but I secretly have a great need for gods. They could help me, now I don't know what I could do in a time of climate change, growing gap between rich and poor, discrimination of minorities, tensions between the world's major countries, restrictions in the freedom of women, decline of biological diversity. It is clear that the problems are huge at the moment. My and your contribution to these issues are limited.
How would it be when we rely on the gods? How would it be when we thank them for their mighty reign, for all they have given us? How would it be like when we feel happiness, praise and thank the gods?
I am longing to this strongly.
I am longing to be freed from my dependence on things, my dominance and egoism, my compulsion to perform, my overestimation. But what will replace this? Let me think about that.
Long forgotten words come into my mind. Let’s shift to the artwork by Deborah Bell. Then I go to the middle between the gods. I look at them one at a time. I listen if they might say something between the gusts of wind. I tell them my deepest desires deep in my mind. I am quiet and I wait. I am waiting for a very long time. I get on your knees and lay on the ground with his arms and legs outstretched. I lay down until I feel calm and feel that the earth is carrying me. I stand up slowly. I make a deep bow for a long period of time. I'm going back to my own place and do what I can do best.
By Theo, www.artatsite.com
Vertaling
Lof aan de goden
Sentinels is een ongemakkelijk kunstwerk; een halve cirkel met verschillende goden op een hoge sokkel. Zij dragen een lang gewaad en boven hun hoofd torent een hoge, brede of lange hoed. Dit is kledij uit een andere tijd. Het geloof is toch uit een andere tijd?
Dit zeg ik, maar stiekem heb ik een grote behoefte aan goden. Zij kunnen mij helpen, nu ik niet meer weet wat ik kan doen in een tijd van klimaatverandering, toenemende verschillen tussen arm en rijk, discriminatie van minderheden, spanningen tussen de grootste landen, belemmering van vrijheid van vrouwen, teruglopende biodiversiteit. Het is duidelijk dat de problemen groot zijn op dit moment. Mijn en jouw bijdrage bij deze problemen zijn beperkt.
Hoe zou het zijn als wij vertrouwen op de goden? Hoe zou het zijn als wij hen danken voor alles wat ons gegeven is, voor hun machtige regering? Hoe zou het zijn als wij geluk voelen, de goden loven en danken?
Hier verlang ik sterk naar.
Ik verlang ernaar verlost te zijn van mijn afhankelijkheid van spullen, mijn dominantie en egoïsme, mijn dwang tot presteren, mijn zelfoverschatting. Maar wat komt hiervoor in de plaats? Laat mij hier even over nadenken.
Lang vergeten woorden schieten mij te binnen. Laten wij ons verplaatsen naar het kunstwerk van Deborah Bell. Dan ga ik midden tussen de goden staan. Ik kijk hen allen aan, één voor één. Ik luister of zij misschien iets zeggen tussen de windvlagen door. Dan zeg ik diep in mijn binnenste mijn diepste verlangens op. Ik ben stil en wacht. Ik wacht heel lang. Ik kniel en lig op de grond met wijd uitgestrekte armen en benen. Ik lig nét zo lang totdat ik mij rustig voel en voel dat de aarde mij draagt. Ik sta langzaam op. Ik maak lange tijd een diepe buiging. Ik ga naar mijn eigen plek en doe wat ik het beste doen kan.
Door Theo, www.artatsite.com
www.everardlondon.com:
Deborah Bell’s Sentinels (2020) were conceived as gatekeepers for humanity – holding the centre in a chaotic world – but during the many months of their creation, Bell never imagined the scale of the tsunami from which we might need protection.
It is striking to us how poignant these sentinels became in the context of an impending universal crisis and a time of isolation and separation from so much of what makes us human.
Bell views the new Sentinels (2020) as quite different from the first and original set: “They grow out of the clay as if they are growing out of rock. They are elemental - part of the earth. For the last few years I have explored the materiality of flesh and its connection to our earth. I’m aware that so many cultures in their religions and myths talk about the creation of man from clay. I work in clay to create or reveal a human figure, but I also sense that clay knows how to become rock, and that clay itself is formed from the weathering of rockling of rebirth interests me - it touches some deep knowing that I am unable to explain.” Deborah Bell explains further in the below video.
Cast in bronze, their origins trace back to the series of nine sentinels the artist made in 2003. Those sentinels drew some of their inspiration from the columnar figures and statuary which Bell was looking at during this period; they became like guardians, observers occupying a place of stillness and reflection.
www.artsandcollections.com:
Those sentinels drew some of their inspiration from the columnar figures and statuary which Bell was looking at during this period; they became like guardians, observers occupying a place of stillness and reflection. Created using techniques evolved by Bell, these commanding figures became part of a journey of discovery for the artist. She explains; “In 2003 at a time when I found myself between two places, with no home, no kiln nor studio to work in, I made my first set of nine Sentinels. Their form evolved from wng with pillars of hard extruded clay that came out of the pugmill at a brick factory. Working with this clay on these columnar shapes suggested a new way of working. I began to carve, and carve again, a way of both revealing and creating which was different to the slow circular building up through coiling that I had used in my earlier clay work. The material taught my hands what to do, and I was reminded of Gothic imagery of saints, prophets and kings, ancient hermae placed at crossings and boundaries to ward off evil, and African veranda posts and wooden staffs that similarly recognised another realm that could offer protection.
“In the process of working, my columnar figures became guardians or sentinels. I thought that if, on a subatomic level, everything exists as a sea of energy and potential, then who are the observers who hold this material world in focus?”
www.everardlondon.com:
Bell is facinated by ancient civilisations and their excavated artefacts. Her work incorporates powerfmages and layered visual, symbolic and iconographic references of past and present worlds. In her iconography, the artist draws from a range of cultures - African, Chinese, Egyptian, Greek, early Christian, European - and a range of psychologies and philosophies, particularly the Buddhist preoccupation with stillness and the shedding of attachment and the ego.
In Bell’s recent work human figures have embodied the seeker on a journey, often accompanied by lions, hounds, wolves, horses and totemic modes of transport such as boats and chariots.
Bell’s artworks convey themes that have evolved through dreams, meditations, altered states, spiritual quests and the process of working. They record her journey into the mysteries of the cosmos – and, like metaphors, like symbols, her works stand for the beings, the presences, the nodes of meaning and association that she has encountered along the way.
www.artsandcollections.com:
In 2019 Everard Read London approached Bell about revisiting her entinels. All editions of the original sculptures had been sold but it prompted Bell to explore these guardian figures again. “When I made the original nine Sentinels,” says Bell, “I was aware of the mystical number of nine as the trinity of trinities, and as a symbol of transformation and completion. In researching the symbol of the number eight I understood it as the number of regeneration and harmony and balance, as well as being a Christian symbol of salvation and resurrection. I also learnt about the Chinese Eight Immortals who control all aspects of life and have eight tools of power that can give life or destroy evil. It seemed fitting to make a new series of Sentinels of that number.”
Bell views the new Sentinels (2020) as quite different from the first and original set: “They grow out of the clay as if they are growing out of rock. They are elemental – part of the earth. For the last few years, I have explored the materiality of flesh and its connection to our earth. I’m aware that es in their religions and myths talk about the creation of man from clay. I work in clay to create or reveal a human figure, but I also sense that clay knows how to become rock, and that clay itself is formed from the weathering of rock. This cycling of rebirth interests me – it touches some deep knowing that I am unable to explain.”
Bell subscribes to the notion of art as magical object and she makes artworks with the intention to transform. She likens her work to “a form of alchemy, an ancient process of transmutation of base metals into gold, in search of the meaning of life.” Indeed, she feels that each new image she creates is a transformation, a melting in the crucible which results in a personal transformation. In this, there is something shamanistic about her practice.
www.artsandcollections.com:
The Sentinels (2020) have been cast in bronze, and Bell acknowledges that whilst the firing of clay changes the property of the material, so does the elemental casting into bronze. t oth symbolise the alchemical fire,” she says. Bell’s creation of the Sentinels (2020) marks the end of a chapter for the artist: “As I was working on these new Sentinels, a friend brought to my attention that I had made that first set of nine when I was between two places – about to move homes, and now that I am about to relocate again after seventeen years, I am making them once more. In a way both sets are like bookends to a segment of my life.”
For much of Bell’s working life as an artist, which has included collaborations with friend and fellow South African artist, William Kentridge, she has been on a quest to connect with herself, with others, and with the mysterious forces that are inside and around her. Increasingly, her art-making has been part of a very personal, spiritual journey. She makes art to explore, to enter into the unknown, to surrender control and to alter herself.
Bell is fascinated by ancient civilisations and their excavated artefacts. Her work incorporates powerfullayered visual, symbolic and iconographic references of past and present worlds. In her iconography, the artist draws from a range of cultures – African, Chinese, Egyptian, Greek, early Christian, European – and a range of psychologies and philosophies, particularly the Buddhist preoccupation with stillness and the shedding of attachment and the ego.
Bell’s art conveys themes that have evolved through dreams, meditations, altered states, spiritual quests and the process of working. They record her journey into the mysteries of the cosmos – and, like metaphors, like symbols, her works stand for the beings, the presences, the nodes of meaning and association that she has encountered along the way. In Bell’s work human figures have embodied the seeker on a journey, often accompanied by lions, hounds, wolves, horses and totemic modes of transport such as boats and chariots.
Recently, and evident in this new body of work, the spirit animals that have transported her, and the horses in particugrown in scale and become more like resting places in themselves, symbols for the world or for home. Their riders have, in turn, become less protagonists, less figures with agency, and more like figures present at a greater event, experiencing something greater than themselves and being content to dwell there. Bell has arrived at a place beyond judgement, a place of realisation that each of us is a spark from the divine fire, an individual expression of a far greater mystery. Everard Read has represented Deborah Bell for a decade. This is her seventh solo exhibition with Everard Read galleries.
www.artsandcollections.com:
Deborah Bell (b. 1957, South Africa) 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 qtidian 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.
Deborah Bell’s work is represented in public and private collections around the world including the Museum of Modern Art, New York, the Smithsonian Institute and the National Gallery of Art, Washington, DC, the Hara Museum, Tokyo and the IZIKO South African National Gallery, Cape Town.
www.wikipedia.org:
Deborah Bell (1957, Johannesburg) is a South African painter and sculptor whose works are known internationally.
Bell earned fine arts degree from the University of Witwatersrand in 1975 and in 1986 she earned Master of Arts at the same university.
Her career began in 1982 and Bell has had many solo and group exhibitions in South Africa and abroad. From 1983 to 1989 she lectured at various institutions, including the Universitythe Witwatersrand and the University of South Africa. She has traveled extensively in Africa, North America and Europe and in 1986 she spent two months working at the Cité Internationale des Artes in Paris. From 1986 to 1997 she collaborated with South African artists William Kentridge and Robert Hodgins on different projects. In 1997, they produced a series of images of Alfred Jarry and William Hogarth works. Together, the three artists have also created works of computer animation.
Deborah Bell is a winner of several awards, her works can be found in public and private collections around the world
Sentinels is an unconfortable artwork; a semi-circle with a variety of gods on a high pedestal. They wear a long robe and on top of their head a high, wide or long hat. This is clothing from another period of time. Faith is from another time, isn’t it?
I say this, but I secretly have a great need for gods. They could help me, now I don't know what I could do in a time of climate change, growing gap between rich and poor, discrimination of minorities, tensions between the world's major countries, restrictions in the freedom of women, decline of biological diversity. It is clear that the problems are huge at the moment. My and your contribution to these issues are limited.
How would it be when we rely on the gods? How would it be when we thank them for their mighty reign, for all they have given us? How would it be like when we feel happiness, praise and thank the gods?
I am longing to this strongly.
I am longing to be freed from my dependence on things, my dominance and egoism, my compulsion to perform, my overestimation. But what will replace this? Let me think about that.
Long forgotten words come into my mind. Let’s shift to the artwork by Deborah Bell. Then I go to the middle between the gods. I look at them one at a time. I listen if they might say something between the gusts of wind. I tell them my deepest desires deep in my mind. I am quiet and I wait. I am waiting for a very long time. I get on your knees and lay on the ground with his arms and legs outstretched. I lay down until I feel calm and feel that the earth is carrying me. I stand up slowly. I make a deep bow for a long period of time. I'm going back to my own place and do what I can do best.
By Theo, www.artatsite.com
Vertaling
Lof aan de goden
Sentinels is een ongemakkelijk kunstwerk; een halve cirkel met verschillende goden op een hoge sokkel. Zij dragen een lang gewaad en boven hun hoofd torent een hoge, brede of lange hoed. Dit is kledij uit een andere tijd. Het geloof is toch uit een andere tijd?
Dit zeg ik, maar stiekem heb ik een grote behoefte aan goden. Zij kunnen mij helpen, nu ik niet meer weet wat ik kan doen in een tijd van klimaatverandering, toenemende verschillen tussen arm en rijk, discriminatie van minderheden, spanningen tussen de grootste landen, belemmering van vrijheid van vrouwen, teruglopende biodiversiteit. Het is duidelijk dat de problemen groot zijn op dit moment. Mijn en jouw bijdrage bij deze problemen zijn beperkt.
Hoe zou het zijn als wij vertrouwen op de goden? Hoe zou het zijn als wij hen danken voor alles wat ons gegeven is, voor hun machtige regering? Hoe zou het zijn als wij geluk voelen, de goden loven en danken?
Hier verlang ik sterk naar.
Ik verlang ernaar verlost te zijn van mijn afhankelijkheid van spullen, mijn dominantie en egoïsme, mijn dwang tot presteren, mijn zelfoverschatting. Maar wat komt hiervoor in de plaats? Laat mij hier even over nadenken.
Lang vergeten woorden schieten mij te binnen. Laten wij ons verplaatsen naar het kunstwerk van Deborah Bell. Dan ga ik midden tussen de goden staan. Ik kijk hen allen aan, één voor één. Ik luister of zij misschien iets zeggen tussen de windvlagen door. Dan zeg ik diep in mijn binnenste mijn diepste verlangens op. Ik ben stil en wacht. Ik wacht heel lang. Ik kniel en lig op de grond met wijd uitgestrekte armen en benen. Ik lig nét zo lang totdat ik mij rustig voel en voel dat de aarde mij draagt. Ik sta langzaam op. Ik maak lange tijd een diepe buiging. Ik ga naar mijn eigen plek en doe wat ik het beste doen kan.
Door Theo, www.artatsite.com
www.everardlondon.com:
Deborah Bell’s Sentinels (2020) were conceived as gatekeepers for humanity – holding the centre in a chaotic world – but during the many months of their creation, Bell never imagined the scale of the tsunami from which we might need protection.
It is striking to us how poignant these sentinels became in the context of an impending universal crisis and a time of isolation and separation from so much of what makes us human.
Bell views the new Sentinels (2020) as quite different from the first and original set: “They grow out of the clay as if they are growing out of rock. They are elemental - part of the earth. For the last few years I have explored the materiality of flesh and its connection to our earth. I’m aware that so many cultures in their religions and myths talk about the creation of man from clay. I work in clay to create or reveal a human figure, but I also sense that clay knows how to become rock, and that clay itself is formed from the weathering of rockling of rebirth interests me - it touches some deep knowing that I am unable to explain.” Deborah Bell explains further in the below video.
Cast in bronze, their origins trace back to the series of nine sentinels the artist made in 2003. Those sentinels drew some of their inspiration from the columnar figures and statuary which Bell was looking at during this period; they became like guardians, observers occupying a place of stillness and reflection.
www.artsandcollections.com:
Those sentinels drew some of their inspiration from the columnar figures and statuary which Bell was looking at during this period; they became like guardians, observers occupying a place of stillness and reflection. Created using techniques evolved by Bell, these commanding figures became part of a journey of discovery for the artist. She explains; “In 2003 at a time when I found myself between two places, with no home, no kiln nor studio to work in, I made my first set of nine Sentinels. Their form evolved from wng with pillars of hard extruded clay that came out of the pugmill at a brick factory. Working with this clay on these columnar shapes suggested a new way of working. I began to carve, and carve again, a way of both revealing and creating which was different to the slow circular building up through coiling that I had used in my earlier clay work. The material taught my hands what to do, and I was reminded of Gothic imagery of saints, prophets and kings, ancient hermae placed at crossings and boundaries to ward off evil, and African veranda posts and wooden staffs that similarly recognised another realm that could offer protection.
“In the process of working, my columnar figures became guardians or sentinels. I thought that if, on a subatomic level, everything exists as a sea of energy and potential, then who are the observers who hold this material world in focus?”
www.everardlondon.com:
Bell is facinated by ancient civilisations and their excavated artefacts. Her work incorporates powerfmages and layered visual, symbolic and iconographic references of past and present worlds. In her iconography, the artist draws from a range of cultures - African, Chinese, Egyptian, Greek, early Christian, European - and a range of psychologies and philosophies, particularly the Buddhist preoccupation with stillness and the shedding of attachment and the ego.
In Bell’s recent work human figures have embodied the seeker on a journey, often accompanied by lions, hounds, wolves, horses and totemic modes of transport such as boats and chariots.
Bell’s artworks convey themes that have evolved through dreams, meditations, altered states, spiritual quests and the process of working. They record her journey into the mysteries of the cosmos – and, like metaphors, like symbols, her works stand for the beings, the presences, the nodes of meaning and association that she has encountered along the way.
www.artsandcollections.com:
In 2019 Everard Read London approached Bell about revisiting her entinels. All editions of the original sculptures had been sold but it prompted Bell to explore these guardian figures again. “When I made the original nine Sentinels,” says Bell, “I was aware of the mystical number of nine as the trinity of trinities, and as a symbol of transformation and completion. In researching the symbol of the number eight I understood it as the number of regeneration and harmony and balance, as well as being a Christian symbol of salvation and resurrection. I also learnt about the Chinese Eight Immortals who control all aspects of life and have eight tools of power that can give life or destroy evil. It seemed fitting to make a new series of Sentinels of that number.”
Bell views the new Sentinels (2020) as quite different from the first and original set: “They grow out of the clay as if they are growing out of rock. They are elemental – part of the earth. For the last few years, I have explored the materiality of flesh and its connection to our earth. I’m aware that es in their religions and myths talk about the creation of man from clay. I work in clay to create or reveal a human figure, but I also sense that clay knows how to become rock, and that clay itself is formed from the weathering of rock. This cycling of rebirth interests me – it touches some deep knowing that I am unable to explain.”
Bell subscribes to the notion of art as magical object and she makes artworks with the intention to transform. She likens her work to “a form of alchemy, an ancient process of transmutation of base metals into gold, in search of the meaning of life.” Indeed, she feels that each new image she creates is a transformation, a melting in the crucible which results in a personal transformation. In this, there is something shamanistic about her practice.
www.artsandcollections.com:
The Sentinels (2020) have been cast in bronze, and Bell acknowledges that whilst the firing of clay changes the property of the material, so does the elemental casting into bronze. t oth symbolise the alchemical fire,” she says. Bell’s creation of the Sentinels (2020) marks the end of a chapter for the artist: “As I was working on these new Sentinels, a friend brought to my attention that I had made that first set of nine when I was between two places – about to move homes, and now that I am about to relocate again after seventeen years, I am making them once more. In a way both sets are like bookends to a segment of my life.”
For much of Bell’s working life as an artist, which has included collaborations with friend and fellow South African artist, William Kentridge, she has been on a quest to connect with herself, with others, and with the mysterious forces that are inside and around her. Increasingly, her art-making has been part of a very personal, spiritual journey. She makes art to explore, to enter into the unknown, to surrender control and to alter herself.
Bell is fascinated by ancient civilisations and their excavated artefacts. Her work incorporates powerfullayered visual, symbolic and iconographic references of past and present worlds. In her iconography, the artist draws from a range of cultures – African, Chinese, Egyptian, Greek, early Christian, European – and a range of psychologies and philosophies, particularly the Buddhist preoccupation with stillness and the shedding of attachment and the ego.
Bell’s art conveys themes that have evolved through dreams, meditations, altered states, spiritual quests and the process of working. They record her journey into the mysteries of the cosmos – and, like metaphors, like symbols, her works stand for the beings, the presences, the nodes of meaning and association that she has encountered along the way. In Bell’s work human figures have embodied the seeker on a journey, often accompanied by lions, hounds, wolves, horses and totemic modes of transport such as boats and chariots.
Recently, and evident in this new body of work, the spirit animals that have transported her, and the horses in particugrown in scale and become more like resting places in themselves, symbols for the world or for home. Their riders have, in turn, become less protagonists, less figures with agency, and more like figures present at a greater event, experiencing something greater than themselves and being content to dwell there. Bell has arrived at a place beyond judgement, a place of realisation that each of us is a spark from the divine fire, an individual expression of a far greater mystery. Everard Read has represented Deborah Bell for a decade. This is her seventh solo exhibition with Everard Read galleries.
www.artsandcollections.com:
Deborah Bell (b. 1957, South Africa) 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 qtidian 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.
Deborah Bell’s work is represented in public and private collections around the world including the Museum of Modern Art, New York, the Smithsonian Institute and the National Gallery of Art, Washington, DC, the Hara Museum, Tokyo and the IZIKO South African National Gallery, Cape Town.
www.wikipedia.org:
Deborah Bell (1957, Johannesburg) is a South African painter and sculptor whose works are known internationally.
Bell earned fine arts degree from the University of Witwatersrand in 1975 and in 1986 she earned Master of Arts at the same university.
Her career began in 1982 and Bell has had many solo and group exhibitions in South Africa and abroad. From 1983 to 1989 she lectured at various institutions, including the Universitythe Witwatersrand and the University of South Africa. She has traveled extensively in Africa, North America and Europe and in 1986 she spent two months working at the Cité Internationale des Artes in Paris. From 1986 to 1997 she collaborated with South African artists William Kentridge and Robert Hodgins on different projects. In 1997, they produced a series of images of Alfred Jarry and William Hogarth works. Together, the three artists have also created works of computer animation.
Deborah Bell is a winner of several awards, her works can be found in public and private collections around the world