WHAT'S THE
CONCEPT
Jenny Bell is a multimedia artist from London UK working across screen print, photocopy and moving image. Works are usually linear, generative, subjects of sequence, self-referential, and made in movement.
Interested in duality and the cognitive dissonance created when opposites collide. Bell plays with the function of reprographics and digital editing to create mono prints and screen recording low-fi moving image. As a professional screen printer since 2010 she also uses her technical knowledge to create screen printed editions. Using layering/overprint techniques, transparent and opaque inks as symbols or metaphors for meaning.
The subject of Surface (2D) and Form (3D) shows up time after time as Bell uses the materiality of flatness to question what, if anything, lays beneath. The conundrum of 3D flatness acts as a centre point in Bell’s work pushing her practice forward.
Influenced by the psychology of failure and error. She studies philosophies and art theory of glitch. Inspired by water; Bell does a lot of my thinking whilst swimming. It is the feeling as well as the aesthetics of water that captivates her mind. The impossibility of being able to float on and sink below the surface. She has spent a lot of time in looking into the pool/body of water to the world below, it wasn't until I began to look back up at the surface that she understood the importances of swimming.
Bell began thinking about concepts of REALITY whilst studying a Masters in Visual Arts, Printmaking at Camberwell School of Art, Ual, in 2008-10. At that time I was interested in fear, and questioned what she was scared off. This led her to think about what makes up ones consciousness, the internal verse the external life. She researched virtual and simulated realities and eventually looked to the spiritual practice of shamanism as a vehicle to visualise findings, thoughts and feelings. She was awarded a Graduate Print Prize by Jealous Gallery for this work. To date the Screen Print produced in the Jealous studio is held in the V&A museum print collection and is for sale on the Jealous Gallery website.
https://jealousgallery.com/collections/jenny-bell
https://collections.vam.ac.uk/item/O1274470/halo-screenprint-bell-jenny/