Roberley Bell P

Title: Second Nature

Medium: Chain link, cedar benches, steel frames with astroturf, live plantings, & sod

Location: Grant Park Chicago, IL (2004)

Second Nature reflects my continuing interest in the garden and the built American landscape as an extension of the domestic realm. The urban oasis provided by the city park, like a garden, is an extension of our domestic space and as such is contained and controlled in similar ways. Second Nature incorporates live text growing through artificial turf and accompanied by the classic icon of domestic shelter, a house. The house formed of chain link affords a view in and through, though cannot physically be penetrated, suggesting our attempt to mediate between the inside and outside worlds. The text 'Second Nature is Home' is referenced by the Roman philosopher Cicero's term Alteram Naturam, referring to a landscape of elements that man has introduced to make nature habitable. The concept of second nature implies first nature, one before man's intervention and control, a physical world that was not 'home.'

Roberley Bell spent her childhood in Latin America and Southeast Asia, before returning to the United States to attend the University of Massachusetts and State University of New York at Alfred from where she holds an MFA in Sculpture. Bell is the recipient of many grants and fellowships including two from the New York Foundation for the Arts, a Pollock Krasner Fellowship, a Fulbright to the Netherlands and several residency awards including the International Studio Program, NY, NY, Dieu Donne Workspace residency, and most recently she was an artist in residence at the Stadt Kustlerhaus in Salzburg, Austria. Bell's work has been exhibited in both one person and group exhibitions, nationally and internationally. Her work has been included in exhibitions at the State Tretyakov Gallery, Moscow; Dieu Donne Gallery, NYC; Virginia Museum of Fine Arts; Fassbender-Stevens Gallery, Chicago, Black and White Gallery, Brooklyn, Paul Petro Gallery Toronto and several Art Fairs. Bell has completed public site projects in Pittsburgh, Baltimore, Chicago and New York. Currently she is working on a public project for Costa Lopez Park in Cambridge, MA. Bell's projects examine ideas related to the built environment exploring the relationship between the man made and the natural in landscape focusing on the artifice of nature.

Roberley Bell