Particles of Uncertainty - Mark Bell

About

Overarching themes of the cycle are violence, Nature, kinship, and the cosmos, which are seen here as fundamental particles of existence in all their uncertainty. The work is not deliberately dystopian, but comments on an understanding of reality.

Characteristic of the five works is the use of sheet aluminium, one of Bell’s signature materials for its contemporary quality that is both seductive and aesthetically satisfying, yet with a sense of neutral cold permanence. Bell’s previous works on aluminium span over figurative, textual, and mixed media work. 

The metal becomes a fundamental element of the paintings: rather than being a mere background, it’s equal to the painted marks and dialogues with them. Its reflective quality brings movement and change into the paintings when the viewer stands in front of them: the works respond to the light setting in the space and shine with liveliness. The aluminium is sometimes also etched into with organic shapes, thus enhancing its materiality beyond the two-dimensional.

The figures in the works stand out for their bold and refined colour palette and for the treatment of the shapes. The dominant tone, blue – an ‘eternal colour’, as the artist describes it – is deep, nuanced, vibrant. Full reds and crimsons, pale oranges, and saturated yellows complement the palette in a pulsating landscape.

The marks seem applied quickly, long sweeping arabesques, the curves of limbs, ‘drawn’ in oil rather than ‘painted’. In the interplay between the bare aluminium and the marks, depth is treated not in terms of foreground/background but with a sense of abstraction to it. The figures and their surrounds represent the same existing elementary particles. 

In ‘Particles of Uncertainty’, humans inhabit a cosmos made of lush leaves, howling dogs, skulls, predatorial big cats. Curved lines in the oil marks and etching on aluminium convey sensuality and love of nature. In this cosmos, one of the primal forces is violence, which the artist presents without value judgements, but rather as the constant vehicle for change, in the sense that entropy and evolution are violent. 

The two ‘Baby Universes’ paintings and the painting ‘Dark Matter’ are named from theoretical physics and cosmology, two things the artist is greatly interested in for they are the fundamentals of existence.

In the artist’s words, the painting ‘The Three Graces’ here are Change, Truth, and Beauty, or alternatively, Violence, Science, and Peace. All evolution involves violent action and change, from the birth and death of a star, to the budding and withering of a leaf. This violence, however, is couched within scientific understanding that comments on what the artist sees as fundamental processes and qualities of existence.

The painting titled ‘Gaia’ tackles the relationship between humans and the natural environment. Both are presented in their vulnerability and violence. The work reflects on the need for humans to reconsider this relationship with the environment.

The works also touch on gender and human/family relation. The figures can be male and female forms but also neither, in a move away from ‘male’ female’ figure representation towards ‘human’.

Dogs in the work are seen as metaphors rather than actual dogs. Bell reflects on the co-evolution of dogs and humans and their mutual affinity. In their animality, dogs can tell something about human experience. The howling dogs that are teethless speak of the intermittent existential cry of humanity.