Aisha Tandiwe Bell Explained

Aisha Tandiwe Bell
Birth Place:	New York City
Nationality:	American
Education:	BFA, Pratt Institute; MS Pratt Institute; MFA Hunter College
Alma Mater:	Pratt Institute
Style:	Mixed media artist
Website:	Artist websiteTwitter account

Aisha Tandiwe Bell is an American visual artist known for her work that creates myth and ritual through mixed media including sculpture performance, video, sound, drawing, and installation that addresses themes of fragmentation, shape-shifting, code-switching, hyphenated identities and multiple consciousness, marginalization, and lack of agency people in the African Diaspora struggle with.^{[1] [2] [3] [4]} Through her mixed media, Aisha Tandiwe Bell's art focuses on and looks at the societal constraints of sex, race, and class. She uses each piece of her art to look at the norms that society has created around sex, race, and class and the limitations that people have placed upon themselves when it comes to these ideas.^[5] As a Jamaican-American woman in the United States, Bell uses her art to represent the displacement that she feels and the alter egos that black women have to uphold publicly and privately. The sculptures that Bell creates are intentionally cracked, fragmented, and imperfect to reflect her fractured identity.^[6]

Biography

Bell was born and resides in New York City. She is a recipient of the 2017 DVCAI International Cultural Exchange to Guadeloupe.^[7] Bell has completed a number of residencies/ fellowships including Skowhegan, Rush Corridor Gallery, Abron's Art Center, LMCC’s Swing Space, The Laundromat Project, BRIC,^[8] Hunter College Ceramic Residency^[9] in 2013 and as the Artist In Residence in 2010 at Abron's Art Center Henry Street Settlement in New York, NY.

Exhibitions

2017

• CONJURE, Welencora Gallery, Brooklyn, NY, curated by Derrick Adams^{[10] [11]}
• Body and Soul, Venice Biennial, Venice Italy, curated by Elga Wimmer
  • A prerequisite for Rebellion, Ann Arbor Film Festival, Ann Arbor, MI, curated by Ingrid Lafleur Jamaica Biennial 2017 National Gallery, Kinston, Jamaica

2016

• BRIC Biennial, Brooklyn, New York^[12]
• Let them eat red earth. Let them eat dirt, Space One Eleven, Birmingham, AL, curated by Rosie Gordan-Wallace
• Space One Eleven AIR, Birmingham, AL

2015

• [MoCADA], Museum of Contemporary Art of Contemporary African Diaspora Arts, Brooklyn, NY^[13]

2012

• The Laundromat Project Public Art Commission, NY

2002

• Skylight Gallery at Restoration Plaza, Jamaica, NY^[14]

External links

• • https://contemporaryand.com/exhibition/aisha-tandiwe-bell-akin-alike-in-reference-to-of-the-same-family/
• https://www.wassaicproject.org/artists/artist-profiles/list/aisha-tandiwe-bell

Notes and References

1. Web site: Aisha Tandiwe Bell, Workspace 2017-18 - LMCC . LMCC.
2. Web site: Welancora Gallery Press Release . 21 October 2018 . 21 October 2018 . https://web.archive.org/web/20181021111421/https://static1.squarespace.com/static/57632e20893fc07fb7ee092c/t/59e685b00abd04305dec0387/1508279730559/Final+Press+for+Aisha+Bell%27s+Exhibition2.pdf . dead .
3. News: CARIBBEAT: Small nations gear up for Labor Day's big West Indian Parade. New York Daily News. July 10, 2016. October 21, 2018.
4. Web site: Analogous Exhibit by Aisha Tandiwe Bell at the HCC Dale Mabry Gallery Hillsborough Community College News . news.hccfl.edu . 21 October 2018 . en . 21 October 2018 . https://web.archive.org/web/20181021232222/https://news.hccfl.edu/press-release/analogous-exhibit-aisha-tandiwe-bell-hcc-dale-mabry-gallery . dead .
5. Web site: Aisha Tandiwe Bell in Domestic Brutes at Pelham Art Center – Art Spiel. 2021-03-09. en-US.
6. Web site: admin. 2017-01-15. Aisha Tandiwe Bell. 2021-03-09. AFRICANAH.ORG. en-US.
7. Web site: DVCAI I.C.E Guadelope . dvcai.org . 21 October 2018.
8. Web site: 2016 BRIC Visual Artist Residency Recipients Announced!. BRIC Arts Media. May 10, 2016. October 21, 2018.
9. Web site: 2016 BRIC Visual Artist Residency Recipients Announced! . BRIC . en . 10 May 2016.
10. Web site: Welancora Gallery Press Release . 21 October 2018 . 21 October 2018 . https://web.archive.org/web/20181021111421/https://static1.squarespace.com/static/57632e20893fc07fb7ee092c/t/59e685b00abd04305dec0387/1508279730559/Final+Press+for+Aisha+Bell%27s+Exhibition2.pdf . dead .
11. Web site: Aisha Tandiwe "Bell Conjure". www.nyartbeat.com. en. 2018-10-21.
12. Web site: 2016 BRIC Visual Artist Residency Recipients Announced! . BRIC . 21 October 2018 . en . 10 May 2016.
13. Web site: Reis . Victoria . Artists of the African Diaspora Cast Off the Legacy of Displacement . Hyperallergic . Hyperallergic . 21 October 2018 . 11 December 2015.
14. News: New work by four emerging women artists at skylight gallery's 2002 challenge exhibit.. September 11, 2002. 21 October 2018. New Voice of New York, Inc. Harlem USA.