Strauss & co - 6 March 2017, Cape Town

197 468 Deborah BELL SOUTH AFRICAN 1957– Shining Through the Shadows signed, dated ‘99, numbered 14/35 and inscribed with the title in pencil in the margin hand-coloured dry point etching with chine collé image size: 95 by 58,5 cm R  –   LITERATURE Pippa Stein. (2004) Deborah Bell , Johannesburg: David Krut Publishing. Another example from the edition illustrated in colour on page 29. South Africa: Artists, Prints, Community. Twenty-five years at the Caversham Press, Exhibition Catalogue , February 8 - March 27, 2011. Boston University College of Fine Art. Another example from the edition illustrated in colour on page 31. ‘ Shining Through the Shadows (1999) is an image of both horror and hope. Based on Bell’s diaries and sketches from the British Museum, the dominant image is of a mutilated female figure holding a begging bowl or holy grail, surrounded by fragments of drawings, including a skull and a woman carrying an AK47. She is, however, also surrounded by images of spiritual transformation and possibility - the jug is culled from Picasso’s Still Life with a Jug (1937) and the eyes on the open hands allude to a meditational breathing position which allows for energy to funnel through them. Through the complex overlaying of images and artefacts, Bell represents what she calls “history’s emotion”- a history remembered and recorded, yet holding the promise of new beginnings.’(Stein, page 28)