Unearthed V ,
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Notes : Unearthed V was one of the seven coiled sculptures Deborah Bell first exhibited at the Goodman Gallery in Johannesburg in 2001. All surmounted by headdresses weighed down by a complex array of human and animal forms, Bell enlivened these robustly monumental figures through gesture and pose: elbows bent, hands gesticulating, they align their legs and necks to balance the large projections above their heads. At once reminiscent of ancient Chinese terra-cotta warriors and the awkwardly animated figures found in Egyptian tomb paintings, the Unearthed sculptures suggest a process of excavation, an unearthing of forms and symbols that have been reconfigured and reframed for a new audience.Although, according to Bell, it was as if the Unearthed figures built themselves, using the artist as their medium, the symbolism of the massive headdress towering above the figure in Unearthed V is extraordinarily coherent, drawing on different sub-Saharan and ancient Egyptian sources to evoke the idea of physical and spiritual security as inseparable. Uraeus, the cobra associated with Egyptian gods and pharaohs, rises protectively above the forehead of the figure. To reinforce this evocation of alert defence, Bell perched a horned ram above the snake, thereby invoking tthe powers associated with the Yoruba deity, Shango, who presides over this panoply of symbols with a double-headed battle-axe protruding from his head. In Yoruba mythology, Shango slays his enemies with ease through his control over the power of lightning.Flanked by hieroglyphic ideographs symbolic of life, the headdress looming at the apex of Unearthed V suggests an optimistic celebration of the ability to overcome adversity. Ultimately, though, Bell’s work is far more than the sum of its parts. Majestically self-assured, the figure in Unearthed V seems to embrace the artist’s polyphonic celebration of entangled meanings with a remarkable sense of dignity.
Sandra Klopper
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