UNIVERSITY PARK, Pa. — The HUB-Robeson Galleries presents "Everyone Wants to Be a Perpetual Motion Machine," an exhibition of ceramic sculptures by Patrick Bell. The exhibit will be on display in the HUB-Robeson Center display cases from May through early September.
Bell creates self-probing entities which materialize his relationships to health and the anxieties surrounding it. Fear of intimacy, the stigma surrounding medication, sporadic pain referenced by palpating hands, oversized pills, and inflamed tissue inform his work.
“Works grab and are grabbed in search of another, hopelessly gesturing and reaching towards nothing but empty spaces and amorphous self. They exist as part of an endlessly repeating loop in which the ever-present fear of failure undermines the intention to establish a real connection: they’re lonely, seeking any remedy within, or beyond, their bodily limits. Medicine, as often hazardous and foreign as it is inviting and innocuous, further confuses any kind of concrete framework through which to approach treatments and the self,” he said.
Bell was born in Reisterstown, Maryland, and grew up in Pittsburgh. He received his bachelor of fine arts in ceramics with a minor in printmaking from Edinboro University in 2016. He spent two years studying ceramics at Wichita State University in Kansas. After completing his master of fine arts in ceramics at Kent State University, Bell moved to Baltimore, Maryland, to continue teaching and making, currently as the Lormina Slater Fellow at Baltimore Clayworks. His latest works raise questions about the fear of intimacy, anomalous sensations, and anxieties about health.
Classes, student organizations and University offices are encouraged to visit the HUB-Robeson Galleries, a unit of Penn State Student Affairs. Inquiries can be directed to galleries@psu.edu. For more information on this and other exhibitions, contact the HUB-Robeson Galleries at 814-865-2563 or visit the galleries online. Keep up to date with the HUB-Robeson Galleries by signing up for their Listserv or follow them on Instagram @hubrobesongalleries.