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Bella Kerr

She/her

Artist, educator at Bella Kerr

About

An active practitioner since graduating, drawing has provided continuity in a practice that has spanned installation, small-scale making, film, and set design, shown in a range of contexts from screenings in major London galleries, to museums, and regional galleries. Recent work has been expressed in the form of large-scale installation, digital prints and participatory and curatorial work. I was a lecturer in art and design for 30 years, teaching at all levels from foundation to postgraduate, and Programme Director of the Foundation Art and Design course at Swansea School of Art from 2004 – 2016.
I am currently focusing on studio work, a second series architecture films for RSAW in collaboration with Lyndon Jones, and seeking exhibiting and curatorial projects, with some emphasis on education.

I first met Bella when I was Director at Mission Gallery (Swansea) and know her as an Artist, Curator and Educator - exhibiting in solo & group exhibitions, leading workshops for Raising the Bar, curating the collaborative citywide project Civic, & through partnership projects with the Foundation Art & Design course at Swansea College of Art, and in her role as Chair of MG Board. Bella is active within the cultural network in Wales. She is a generous person with a particular passion for facilitating collaborative projects. Amanda Roderick
CIVIC Collaborative Curatorial Residency at Residency Unlimited New York. I was invited to undertake a month long residency at the Casa dell’ Ospitalita di Venezia, a house for homeless men in Cannaregio. I brought a box full of small objects to ‘lose’, ranging from the worthless to ‘antiquities’ A selection of 10 of these found and made things were cast in bronze, in collaboration with Lee Odishow and Carmarthen School of Art. I commissioned Matthew Otten, designer, to make 100 laser-cut slate dogs. The dogs were ‘distributed’ by participants on city walks, to be found (or lost) over future days, weeks or years. These digital prints, scanned from ink and collaged drawings, are a little clumsy and so seem to refer to that first ‘learning to read’ process of childhood. They were, though, drawn when I was writing an MPhil dissertation and struggling to understand various texts and ideas. Red Ball is an ongoing participatory project inviting makers, students and others to produce a hand-sized red ball (using any material or process) and to tell me about the making.
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