Working with moving image, installation, performance, photography, textiles, printmaking, sculpture, sound, text, and ceramics, Rebecca Bellantoni (b. 1981, UK) draws from everyday occurrences and abstracts them. Through investigations into the layered lens and aesthetics of Black women’s writing (fiction and nonfiction), metaphysics, philosophy, religion, spirituality, and geography, she gently prises apart the concept of the accepted/expected ‘real’ and the experiential ‘real’, looking at how these removed borders may offer meditative experiences and portals to the self, collective reasoning and healing thought and action.
For her first major solo exhibition, Bellantoni brings together a series of sculptural and installation works comprising ceramic, textile, wood, sound, photography and found objects that are encountered slowly in a darkened environment. Together, these new works tell the story of the intergenerational relationship between the artist and her Godmother and the latter’s self-initiated exodus back to Jamaica in the late 1980s. Shifting between the personal and the archetypal, Bellantoni’s exhibition charts the course of The Godmother and The Child through geographical mapping, picturing various energy fields created between these two characters. As in much of the artist’s work, London is a central topographical and subterranean character, an urban space in which time and memory layer and resonate throughout generations of people living in this urban context.
Day and heavy, Judah Leaves draws upon writer Katherine McKittrick’s exploration of the lives of Black women in her book Demonic Grounds, women who, despite being considered ‘ungeographic’ through a history of displacement, continue to claim and build space. Taking this provocation to heart, Bellantoni has created an intimate environment in the gallery that charts the unassuming relationship between a working-class woman and her godchild, and the potential for the mystical to reveal itself in the everyday.
Kindly supported by the Elephant Trust
Special thanks:
Flatland Projects
In recent news, Rebecca Bellantoni has been awarded an Arts Foundation Futures Award becoming a Visual Art Fellow. Download the press release below.
Rebecca Bellantoni lives and works in London. She is the winning Fellow of the 2024 Arts Foundation Futures Awards and a nominee for the 2022 Max Mara Art Prize for Women. Her recent projects include Condition the roses, accept the vision. C.R.Y (REVISED), Tate Britain, London (2023); La Position de l’Amour, CNAC Magasin, Grenoble (2023); In the house of my love, Brent Biennial, London (2022); Frieze Live London (2021); Aggregates, Ausstellungsraum Klingental, Switzerland (2021); Coalition of Care, PUBLICs (Helsinki, Finland, 2019), and La Manutention, Palais de Tokyo (Paris, France, 2019; in collaboration with Rowdy SS). She is the recipient of bursaries and awards from Fluxus Art Projects (2023), a-n The Artists Information Company (2023), Womxn of Colour Art Award (2022), and Jerwood Arts (2020).
DOWNLOAD THE PRESS RELEASE HERE
There are plenty of welcoming and good value B&Bs & boutique hotels in Bexhill. The De La Warr Pavilion regularly uses the following :
- By Rail
Direct trains go from London Victoria, Brighton and Ashford to Bexhill.
There are also trains from London Charing Cross, changing at St. Leonards Warrior Square and from London Bridge or Charing Cross going to Battle. Battle is only a short taxi journey away (15 mins approx).
Visit www.nationalrail.co.uk for up-to-date train travel information. - Taxis
Town Taxis: 01424 211 511
Parkhurst Taxis: 01424 733 456 - By Car
If driving from the London area:
Take the M25, then A21 to Hastings. Turn off at John‘s Cross and follow the signs to Bexhill.
OR
Take the A22 to Eastbourne, go across the Bishop roundabout to the A271 and follow the signs to Bexhill and the seafront. The De La Warr Pavilion is on the Marina.
From the Brighton area:
Follow the A27 out of Brighton until you arrive in Bexhill On Sea. - Parking
Please be aware the Rother District car park outside the De La Warr Pavilion operates paid parking until 7pm. After this time parking is free. There is also lmiited free car parking along the seafront.
Within the limits of this Grade One listed building, the De La Warr Pavilion strives to be fully accessible with a range of facilities to support your visit.
Assistance Dogs are permitted into the building.
Please contact the Box Office on 01424 229 111 to arrange a visit.
Facilities for disabled visitors
- Ramped access at the front of the building
- A low counter at the Box Office and Information Desk
- Disabled toilets on two floors
- A lift to all floors
- Accessible galleries on both floors
- An accessible Café
- Spaces for wheelchairs in the auditorium for seated events
- Ramped access in the auditorium for events during the day
- Ramped access into the Studio
- Two travel wheelchairs are available for use at the De La Warr Pavilion. To reserve, please call our box office and information desk on (01424) 229111 or ask a member of staff on arrival. The chairs are provided on a first come, first served basis and are intended for use inside the Pavilion. Please contact us for more information.
Facilities for blind or visually-impaired
- Large print season brochures
Facilities for the hard-of-hearing
- An T-Switch induction loop in some areas of the auditorium (please indicate when booking as this facility is not available on the balcony)
- British Sign Language interpretation tours of the building and exhibitions are available on request.