Notes

The present lot, World on Fire, is from Deborah Bell’s Desert/Expulsion series from 1989-1991. This painting’s backdrop and colour palette reveal the influence that the artist’s recent trips to Namibia had on this body of work. Here the artist has placed the couple on a small lookout point where they can survey the open, rocky desert landscape below. Her figures are bulky and brawny but, while they are naked, Bell asserts that they are not intended to be seductive or a victim of the viewer’s gaze.¹ Rather, the woman is strong and secure, standing tall and unwaveringly staring back. The male and female figures are equal “…on a joint pilgrimage, they are in a point-counterpoint relationship: connected, yet apart, opposite yet the same; one dark, one light; looking forward, looking back; animus, anima.”²

^1. Ricky Burnett (2011) Deborah Bell- Presence, Johannesburg: Everard Read and Circa on Jellicoe, page 21.
^2. Pippa Stein (2004) Taxi-010 Deborah Bell, Johannesburg: David Krut Publishing, page 18.

Literature

Pippa Stein (2004) Taxi-010 Deborah Bell, Johannesburg: David Krut Publishing, illustrated on pages 17 and 18.

Ricky Burnett (2011) Deborah Bell- Presence, Johannesburg: Everard Read and Circa on Jellicoe, illustrated in colour on page 21.