AN

AFTERNOON WITH
DEBORAH
BELL
ARTIST, DEBORAH BELL,

IMBUES HER WORK WITH

SUCH PRESENCE THAT

LESANNE BROOKE IS LEFT

SPELL-BOUND

Left: Deborah Bell

and Onyx relaxing at
home
Photo: Robin Glanville

Right: Chariot, bronze

– Objects of Power:
memory of metal,
memory of wood –
Goodman Gallery
Photo: John Hodgkiss
PROFILE: Deborah Bell
I’m in a makoro, a wooden boat carved from a single tree. A huge black
dog balances on my lap. In front of me are four ancient carved figures
with large, strong bodies and magnificent hands. On their heads they
carry animals, boats and people. Behind me is Deborah Bell, muse of
this magnificent journey.
Photo: Robin Glanville
O pposite page clockwise
from top left:
Damascus, mixed media on paper – Flux –
Goodman Gallery
Empress Dominion with Chariot in
background – Goodman Gallery,
Objects of Power: memory of metal
memory of wood
Deborah and a statue from Unearthed
Forged, mixed media on paper – Flux
36 PLATINUM LIVING
No, this is not a fantasy trip on the Nile!
This is Deborah’s home and I’m with
Onyx, the affectionate Great Dane,
brother of Xena (warrior princess); and
Robin Glanville, artist, photographer
and tender partner to this power-
house Creation Magician. I’m here for
a glimpse into the inspirations behind
Deborah’s art and to enjoy Robin’s
delicious coffee!
Oh, and the boat? It’s a long story.
Ms Bell is a creative force of
extravagant proportions. This petite,
leonine-eyed woman manifests
artworks that combine ancestral spirits,
monumental visions and highly skilled
craftsmanship. Her artistry comes more
from a driving desire to express the
creation than formal training, although
she’s done a BA Masters at Wits and
lectured at Wits and UNISA.
To enter her home we pass through an
enormous wooden castle-doorway,
watched by her brick-clay Sentinels – a
tall, thin, reverent council of gods or
angels standing symbolically for
Fortitude, Constancy and Eternal
Stability.
Inside is rich, sensual, fascinating.
Vases of old-fashioned roses converse
with African art pieces, Kentridge and
Kente cloths celebrate together. I want
to touch, linger at the collections of
beautiful things, stand quietly in the
warm sunlit spaces. Shelves beckon
with books, artefacts and stones.
Her love of global traditional art is
obvious. Recognising art as a sacred
discipline, she honours each piece and
mixes African, Eastern and European
pieces, both contemporary and
PROFILE: Deborah Bell
antique. This home is like a cultural
museum made resplendent with
colour and comfort.
Deborah recalls her first exhibition and
how she discovered a room at the
back of the gallery with a simple
display of wooden neck rests. “Each
piece was so beautiful, a conscious
understanding of aesthetics and
beauty. These artists saw art as a
power object, not an intellectual
statement.”
She returned regularly to this quiet
room for peace during her exhibition
and loves museums for the ancient
cultural pieces that resonate deeply
within her. In fact, she feels museums
have more influence over her than art
galleries. She believes that we are not
taught about the power of art: “If you
look at old cultures, then you know the
meaning of art. Making art is creative
intent.”
Photo: John Hodgkiss
Deborah works with diluted acrylics, Photo: John Hodgkiss
pastels, oil sticks, charcoals and
crayons. She creates sculptures with
metals, clay and wood. Skilled in print-
making, she has also done video and
film-making. She is vibrantly diverse in
her attempt to express form and
explains that she is summoning a
Presence. Her art is only complete
when the Presence has been fully
revealed.
Without knowing the outcome, her
work begins with a word, an icon, a
picture or a symbol. “I feel as if I pull it
out of creation, I summon archetypes
from beyond the known. It is almost
accidental, unfolding from the space of
creation.”
She experiences creation like magical
alchemy, the making of art like going
through fire: “You have to keep going,
you keep working it. As you work you
are empowering the art. I work from
essence.”
Photo: John Hodgkiss
She is conscious of what she draws,
Photo: Robin Glanville
what she is pulling into life. As a
PLATINUM LIVING 37

Photo: John Hodgkiss
student, she drew a man before she
met him. Then she spent years trying
to get pregnant and did so after a
drawing of a woman holding a baby.
Aware of quantum realities, she has
respect for the space of potential to
which she connects. She is alert to
symbol and visual language,
communing with her media and
allowing her understanding to unfold.
She talks animatedly about the space
between the worlds of conscious and
pre-conscious Knowing and reaches
deep into that space to reveal her
creations.
Clearly, many appreciate the
authenticity of what she does. She has
collaborated with William Kentridge
and Robert Hodgins, exhibited solo
and with groups and appears in public
collections, including the Durban and
Johannesburg Art Galleries and the
National Gallery in Cape Town.
To my unqualified eye, Deborah’s skills
seem daunting. They require
accessories like eye masks, construction
tools, scaffolding and enormous
smelting fires. She takes it all in her
stride, working from a brick factory,
engraving onto metal plates, banging
clay with wooden paddles, whatever it
takes to get the job done.
This artist is her art, it walks through life
with her, and her entire environment is
an expression of this.
Across the courtyard in her studio,
magnificent bulls leap across
enormous canvases with strange spirit-
riders gliding along on their backs.
Deep tones are enlivened with
Photo: John Hodgkiss
PROFILE: Deborah Bell
Opposite page: Monument: sacred brick –
Nirox Foundation Statue Park
Left: Bronze figures from Horse and Rider series
Below: Deborah working in her studio
Bottom: Deborah and her partner Robin
Glanville in their home
splashes and rivulets the colour of
gold, copper, rusty iron and evocative
words like Forge and Enflame emerge.
The bulls are almost sculptural; they
have a dense roundness that is
energised by the metallic movement.
There is also a horse with a Chinese
rider and the tantalising name:
Memories of Silk recently exhibited at
the Goodman Gallery.
The white walls are sketched with
cross-hatchings of charcoals and
pencils that escaped past canvases.
There are penned words like Muse –
inspire, Siren – destroy, or a list: Fury,
Forge, Flow, Fold, Flux, Fuse. Naturally
there are jars of brushes, which she
leaves unwashed for weeks, a left-over
habit from having to wash her
Photo: Robin Glanville
mother’s brushes as a child, which she
disliked! (Her mother was also an
artist).
This incredible on-going body of work
is evoked from many times and places.
Deborah explores collective memories
through her personal journey, honestly
and transcendentally. Her art is beyond
time, culture or theory. It’s a dynamic
force giving form to the beautiful, the
profound, the mythical and the poetic.
And why were we in a makorokoro? It
was in the courtyard being repaired for
use on the lake. Judging by the
enthusiasm that Onyx showed for
joining us, I only hope that he and
Xena have as much balance as the
sculpted dog boating serenely along
the Cradle waterways!
Deborah Bell: bellart.d@gmail.com
Photo: Beverley Parr
PLATINUM LIVING 39