INSIDE OUT
Laumeier Museum and Sculpture Park
St Louis, Missouri
October 2009 - January 2010
Mixed media, sculpture and video
Inside Out explores the relationship between the man-made and the natural with a focus on the artifice of nature. The exhibition of colorful and intricate sculptures fill the five indoor galleries with a survey of her recent work including the Flower Blobs, the Wonder Series, Other Landscapes, and video.
The artist's more recent Wonder Series are inspired by the Wunder & Kunstkammers -- unique museums and collections of the 17th century when contemporary categorical boundaries had yet to be defined. These works are a series of miniature worlds. The curious collections of flora and fauna continue a play between the real and the artificial.
Other Landscapes, Bell's most recent work, departs from the overtly adorned surfaces of the Flower Blob series to reveal the form stripped bare, increased in scale, swelling and bursting with energy.