N.Y. ARTIST ROBERLY BELL TO GIVE GALLERY TALK ON SUNDAY

"What Remains," a mixed-media installation by New York artist Roberley Bell, is on display at the University Gallery through Oct. 21. Bell, a featured artist in the Literary Festival, will give a talk at the gallery at 2:30 p.m. Sunday, Sept. 30, followed by a reception. Both events are free and open to the public.

A professor in the School of Art and Design at Rochester Institute of Technology, Bell has always been a scavenger, creating work that infuses the found object or remnant with fresh interpretive possibilities and metaphorical meaning. Discarded household vessels, rescued from the street or garbage dump and embedded in organic plaster forms, have become components in many of her installations.

Text as a visual language also has played an important role in her work in recent years, starting with her early "wall works." Her new wall installation, "Somewhere Else," is included in the exhibition.

"The wall will be painted pale pink up to two feet from the ceiling," Bell said. "The idea of the paint is to represent my skin being pulled up the wall. Like a decorative wainscoting at five feet running the length of the 43-foot wall will be a story - a single phrase - literally scratched into the surface of the pink, revealing the white wall beneath.

"The story is about my first bedroom. Scattered along the wall will be drawings, rubbed on to the wall, of ballerinas, referencing the wallpaper pattern of my first bedroom."

Earlier this year, Bell received her second Artist's Fellowship from the New York Foundation for the Arts.

The University Gallery is located at 350 W. 21st St. in Norfolk. Gallery hours are noon to 3 p.m. Tuesday through
Thursday; noon to 5 p.m. Friday and Saturday; and 1-4 p.m. Sunday.

For more information call 683-2355.

This article was posted on: September 26, 2001