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British artist Lawson Bell responds to objects, natural or man-made, that he finds.
He imagines them as something else, in effect ‘re-imaging their reality’. It’s often the passage of time, and the natural forces creating a decay, that have allowed them to slip into this new state of being.
He will often write a story to accompany the work.
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Deep forest lived this man, surrounded by spires of grey,
He didn’t care for sight, there was nothing to see,
Nor did he hear, no joy to be heard,
No dreams, none, at day or under blanket of night,
Never ventured, lived on air, through a missing pane
and a crack in bolted door,One midnight, so bright!
Arrived in a blink, birds, of a kind, as fast as wind caught in its gale,
A swirl, six, seven, then eight,
Flying far and high, these spirit birds seek,
Magical and fantastic, translucent as dawn’s mist,
Each brought him something in their beak,
One a key, to open man’s mind to play,
The second, a crystal from the depths, to show wonder under his feet,
Another carried a map, so much beyond his bed of hay,
The fourth found a magnified glass, inviting him to see the universe
in the eye of a dove,
And the fifth, a clock, so never again a wasted day,
The sixth, a bell, to call a lady to dine,
One brought a mirrored ball, reflected moons, under to dance,
“Thank you” he spoke, the first in a long time,
“But can you bring me wine?”
As the eighth sat, sang, and laid an egg.
'I find objects, items cast aside by man or from nature. I don’t find them as such, I see them as being found, as if they were lost, waiting patiently for me to discover. I’m interested in the process of degradation, and the moment when I find an object that’s on the path to being drawn back into the earth. I re-imagine their reality, introducing a sense of the fantastical. Sometimes it’s a solo object, or I create a tableau to tell a tale. More often they are accompanied with the story I imagined, or left naked of words, leaving it to the viewer to put a full stop at the end of their imagination of the piece.'
Exhibitions:
2023
2024
A childhood naturalist, Mark spent his formative years in the woods that surrounded the family home in Cornwall. A born collector, his bedroom was a trove of tanks of the living, bottles and jars of the dead and taxidermized roadkill.
At 16, Bell picked up a camera.
At 18 he travelled to London to chase the dream of a photographer. After a few years, with an agent and work published in Blitz and Vogue, he crossed paths to sculpture, making pieces from found objects and fresh metal. He studied at the London College Of Furniture.
His career morphed to become a Creative Director. He went onto found two design agencies, Warm Rain and latterly Mark Lawson Bell Studio, under the moniker of Plinth Creative. Their client lists cited the world’s top brands; from ABSOLUT vodka, Boucheron, Cartier and Veuve Clicquot. They won a D&AD yellow pencil for a Pringle of Scotland interior, and featured in many design books. He was also the Artistic Director of ‘sketch’ in London’s Mayfair for 14 years, by all accounts the most creative collection of restaurants and bars under one roof.
Many clients would tell him ‘Mark you’re an artist’ Having created brand stories for so long, so he is.
Mark lives and works in Hastings, East Sussex, has three left handed daughters and is seen, always, with a leaf in his pocket.
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