Strauss & co - 26 - 28 July 2020, Online

79 251 Deborah Bell SOUTH AFRICAN 1957– Custodians (Face of Waters, Lady of the Beasts, Hearer of Cries, Upon This Rock) 2015 signed on the base and each figure signed and numbered 11/12 bronze with a silver brown patina on a steel base height: between 73 and 75 cm; 91,5 cm including base; width: max 20 cm; depth: max 16 cm R350 000 – 450 000 EXHIBITED Everard Read, Johannesburg and Cape Town, Deborah Bell – Dreams of Immortality , 2015. LITERATURE Everard Read (ed.) (2015) Deborah Bell – Dreams of Immortality , Johannesburg: Everard Read. Another cast from the edition illustrated in colour on pages 36 and 37. ITEM NOTES The figures are interchangeable and freely mounted on the base. ‘The more I thought about it, the more I realised that the search for stillness is at the core of my art and my life, it is the reason for my meditation and it is what I am searching for in any painting or sculpture I make whether it be a leaping horse or a single contemplative figure. When I reach that state of balanced stillness, then for me the work is finished … I want my images to stand as something complete, beyond time, to touch on eternity and immortality. I also recognise my need to work with substance – to transform self through matter and matter through self. To work with physical stuff and to be alert in the mind to find a terrible beauty, which I believe can serve as an intermediary between the physical and spiritual world and thus becomes its own means of transformation. I also use the act of making to access that part of the mind that is not really working out what to do next, but exists suspended, open to change and new possibilities.’ 1 1. Deborah Bell (2015) Deborah Bell: Dreams of Immortality , exhibition catalogue, Johannesburg: Everard Read, page 14.