Roberley Bell exhibits sculpture and prints
Nov. 1, 2001
KALAMAZOO -- Gallery II in WMU's Sangren Hall is featuring an exhibition of sculpture and prints by visiting artist Roberley Bell Nov. 6-30.
On Thursday, Nov. 8, Bell with give a slide lecture on her work at 7 p.m. in Room 2304 of Sangren, which will be followed by a reception for the artist in Gallery II.
Saturday, Nov. 17, the WMU Department of Art is hosting a Community Family Day. Gallery II will be open from noon to 4 p.m., and there will be art activities with Art Education students for children ages 7 to 14, from 1 to 3 p.m. in Room 1103 of Sangren.
Gallery II hours are 10 a.m. to 5 p.m., Monday through Friday, and noon to 4 p.m. on Saturday, Nov. 17. The gallery will be closed Nov. 21-25 for Thanksgiving Recess. The public is invited to attend. There is easy access for the handicapped and parking is free on Saturdays.
Roberley Bell will be a visiting artist in the Department of Art Nov. 8-9. She says, "The theme of domesticity and the narrative of the everyday run through the work. Text as a visual language has played an important role in my work for the past decade starting with the early wall works that seek to domesticate the gallery environment through the use of wallpaper, mundane vessels and single word associations." Also in the show are two artist's books and studies for them.
Bell's childhood was spent in Latin America and Southeast Asia. She attended the University of Massachusetts and the State University of New York at Alfred, where she received a M.F.A. degree in sculpture. Bell is the recipient of many grants and fellowships including a New York Foundation for the Arts Fellowship and a studio residency in New York City from the International Studio Program. Her work has been exhibited widely in both one-person and group exhibitions. Currently she makes her home in a farming community in upstate New York.
Bell's show includes handmade prints from three recent series along with some small models related to large-scale projects. "The Perfect View" is the most recent series and was completed this year at Dieu Donne Papermill in New York City. The prints are on translucent sheets with a watermark image and an over printed landscape image. The second series, "Between the Memory and the Then," was commissioned last year for an exchange exhibition in Russia titled, "The View from Here," and was at the State Tretyakov Gallery in Moscow. In this series, Bell layers wallpaper patterns and an aging surface "to explore the space where memory exists creating the visual clues to the narrative of past events," she says. The third series is a set of artist's proofs from "Always the Immigrant." These are diagrams of larger installations that incorporate text, visual objects and the scale of the miniature to recall the past.
For additional information, contact the Department of Art Exhibitions Office at 616 387-2455.
Media contact: Jackie Ruttinger, 616 387-2455, jacquelyn.ruttinger@wmich.edu