Beru Bell’s grad exhibition, Pointy Trees, was on display in the S’eliyemetaxwtexw Art Gallery from Nov. 10 – 26. Bell graduated this year with a visual arts major, focusing on painting, sculpture, and new media. Their final exhibition did an excellent job at showcasing all three of their focuses seamlessly. The Cascade got a chance to talk to Bell about their grad exhibition and journey as an art student at UFV.
Pointy Trees has four main components: two paintings, four lantern-like trees, a blurred video projected on the wall, and an eerie audiotrack playing in the background. The paintings, entitled little bites, featured shapes and colours that Bell revisited throughout their degree and refined over the years. The shapes are meant to evoke nostalgia when paired with certain colours (for example, yellow blobs are meant to depict a perfectly popped kernel of buttered popcorn), and they chose these different colours to depict a joyful, bright rainbow. They have already used similar shapes and colours in two other projects — Rainbow Nebula Dreamer and Beautiful Garbage.
The exhibition is named after the sculpture element, four trees Bell created using cotton sheeting and bamboo. Each tree had a sound-reactive circuit at the bottom of it, with a light turning off when you made noise in its vicinity. These glowing trees, making up the sculpture portion of the exhibit, are meant to reflect the impact humans have on the natural environment. In order to keep the forest alive, you must be as quiet and make as little impact as possible.
The video projected on the wall and the sound effects played in the background showcased Bell’s new media focus. The video was landscape photos of recent natural disasters that they put through a blur filter in Adobe Aftereffects to make them more abstract. The audio was a collection of animal sounds — frogs singing, elks crying, birds chirping. They are all warning each other of danger and screaming in fear. While planning the exhibition, Bell was inspired by all the media coverage of natural disasters caused by global warming and decided to have an ecological focus for their capstone project.
Bell has been a student at UFV since 2012, and has seen many changes in the visual arts department and the university itself throughout their eight years here. For example, when they started, sculpture and new media were two separate tracks, but they are now in one combined tract, and they came into the program wanting to get a fashion design minor, but that program was shut down in 2014. Bell also worked for the VA department for five years in the work-study program as a classroom assistant and gallery assistant. Bell left their mark outside of the arts department through their involvement with the Pride Collective and in the creation of the Equality, Diversity, and Inclusivity Centre in the Student Union Building.
As someone who struggled a lot with mental health during their studies, Bell encouraged future and current students to not hold yourself to others’ standards, as everyone has a different level of ability.
“Art is a lot of fun, but it can also be very taxing on your mental health,” said Bell. “If you feel like your art is bad, it could be because you’ve been looking at it too much. You have to believe in yourself more because everyone already loves your work, so don’t be mean to yourself.”
Bell would recommend UFV’s art program to anyone who wants more structure in their life and artistic pursuits. They raved about the access to diverse materials students get when they’re enrolled in the fine arts program, as well as access to a woodshop, print studio, and paint studio. Bell wants to pursue their master’s, but is waiting until more restrictions are lifted and they are actually able to use all the resources available. For now, Bell is continuing to create art at home and sew their own clothes.
Beru Bell among Pointy Trees (Andrea Sadowski/The Cascade)
Andrea Sadowski is working towards her BA in Global Development Studies, with a minor in anthropology and Mennonite studies. When she's not sitting in front of her computer, Andrea enjoys climbing mountains, sleeping outside, cooking delicious plant-based food, talking to animals, and dismantling the patriarchy.
