Gala Bell

Graduate of the Royal College of Art, she has been selected for exhibitions with The Design Museum, The Victoria and Albert Museum, The London Design Festival, The Korean Cultural Institute Berlin, Kunsthalle am Hamburger Platz Berlin and Galerie der HBKsaar in Saarsbrucken. Bell has had commissions by Tate and Lyle and Kellogg’s for her sugar sculptures, with a piece acquired by the Tate and Lyle archive in London. Her work has been featured in publications including Sotheby’s Made in Bed Magazine, with appearances on BBC One, as well as participating on The Talk at Ten panel discussion. She was shortlisted for the Ashurst Art Prize 2021, and has been selected for Saatchi’s Rising Stars 2022 with a special interview feature on their One to Watch.

 

Working in reverse, the image is constructed within a frame of taut silk. I paint from behind the canvas, pushing oil paint in choreographed gestures that reveal themselves on the other side, like the texture of a tapestry. Each tiny gap formed by the warp and weft of silk thread is filled with an extruded pixel of colour, resembling the organic patterns of lichens, the skin of a reptile or a galaxy. The pressing of paint unveils to us the underside of the mark, the moment of contact between material and surface that we would never ordinarily see.

Light and liquid play pivotal roles in the creation and meaning of the work. Transverse orientation is the behaviour of flying insects that orient themselves toward a distant source of light. Light passing through the silk serves as a guide, revealing areas where paint has not yet touched the surface; it acts as an anchor point, a signal, a place to catch the light. As the screen fills with the movement of paint, the glow from the other side is slowly obscured to the artist behind the screen.

Liquid, as a state of matter flows and adapts to its surroundings, it is in a constant state of transformation, challenging the notion of fixed boundaries, representing the ambiguity of identity and the porous nature of our concept of self. It questions where one ends and another begins. The artwork exists through its unbridled unpredictability, engaging in a dialectic that dissolves the hierarchy between painting as an illusion or imitation and painting as an archetype, a free, material process.

 

2023

Fresh Talent pt 1. ,Artistellar Gallery (online show), 21/09/23

Reductive Art Exhibition, Kellogg’s , London & Paris 08/09/23 - 15/09/23

JB Gallery - virtual viewing room - London UK, 02/02/23 - 15/03/23

Art in Hospitals, King Edward VII Hospital with Zimmer Stewart Gallery, 27/01/2023 – 01/01/2024

Villa Lena Art Foundation, open studio 20/08/2023

2022

Nothing is - everything just has been or will be, Korean Cultural Institute, London, UK 12/11/21 - 28/01/22

2021

Nothing is - everything just has been or will be, Korean Cultural Institute, Berlin, Germany 09/07/21 - 28/08/21

Shortlist for Ashurst Art Prize, Fruit and Wool Exchange Shoreditch, London 25/06/21 - 08/10/21

2020

Fountain of Hygiene pt II, Haw Parr Music, Business of Design Week, Hong Kong 30/11/20-05/12/20

The Exhibitionist Hotel, South Kensington, London 15/12/20-31/12/20

Fry Up, Installation for Kensington and Chelsea Art Week, KCAW, 1/12/20 - 30/01/21

Fountain of Hygiene, shortlisted for Hygiene Innovation Beyond the Sanitiser, The Design Museum, London 31/07/10-04/09/20

Wave Theatre, solo show, La Galleria, Pall Mall 01-11/07/20

2019

Winter Salon, Offshoot Artspace, Highgate, 28/11/19-08/12/19

Something Written or Recorded, A Space is A Space, digital 26/11/19-05/12/19

No Captcha, Thanks, Offshoot Artspace, Highgate 20-29/09/19 Anti-Doughte, Museum of Food, Great Exhibition Road Festival,

Victoria and Albert Museum, London, 29/06/19