Deborah Bell’s work is informed by spiritualism, rituals, and rites of passage. In her monumental sculptures, paintings, drawings, and printmaking, Bell’s abraded, time-worn images jettison the viewer back through collective memories of diverse cultures and histories. Her art belies chronological time, though belonging to the present it is replete with anachronisms. Bell uses various layering techniques to build and part-erase her works, as a process, the act of deconstruction and formation often chimes with her current psychic state.

Bell has built an international reputation through solo exhibitions, group shows, and collaborative projects. Her exhibition Dreams Of Immortality ran at Everard Read Gallery in Johannesburg, South Africa, in 2015, and opens at CIRCA London in 2016. Her work has been acquired by The Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) in New York, USA; the National Museum of African Art — Smithsonian Institution in Washington, D.C., USA; Hara Museum of Contemporary Art in Tokyo, Japan; and the South African National Gallery in Cape Town.