Thursday, 5 Feb 2025
Amanda Bell and Simpson family dinner
At KARLA, Yagan Square, Perth
Part of the annual Judy Wheeler commission, where an artist is commissioned to create a new site specific work in the stairwell area at PICA.
Badimia Yamatji and Yued Noongar artist Amanda Bell first started making art in 2017 while working as a full-time carer for her elderly mother. During this time of intense isolation, art became an important outlet and avenue for her to explore and connect with her cultural and familial heritage. Bell has since developed an expansive, experimental practice rooted in her interests in language and its enduring powers, and in exploring new ways of telling stories – through poetry, written word and imagery, together with sculpture, sound and installation.
Bell’s new commission F = m•a (five ways to make a rainbow) is the third Judy Wheeler Commission, an annual series of site-specific works that respond to the history and site of PICA. Using sunlight, sound and language, Bell’s work for PICA addresses the building’s history, acknowledging its construction on unceded land, a moment marked by colonial dispossession and violence. As Bell says, ‘In some of that story there is darkness. I will use light and sound to allow visitors to sit in discomfort. To see, feel and listen to voices and stories that linger with us today.’
On display throughout 2025, Bell’s installation channels and directs the sun’s light through the windows of PICA’s stairwell deep into the building’s recesses. The shifting interplay of light, sound and language with the architecture creates a captivating yet unsettling atmosphere, urging visitors to engage with their surroundings and reflect on the layered histories of the spaces we inhabit – what Bell calls ‘the very collision of building and boodja.’
Amanda Bell is a Badamia Yamatji and Yued Noongar artist woman living and working on Wardandi land in Goomburrup. Working with mediums such as video, sound, textiles, sculpture and installation, Bell’s wide-ranging practice is dedicated to ‘… trying new ways of telling stories that are sometimes uncomfortable and painful, sometimes fun and frivolous.’ Recent exhibitions include N’yettin-ngal Wagur – Yeye Wongie (Ancestors breath – Today talk), John Curtain Gallery, Perth (2024), South West Art Now 2024 (SWAN): A New Constellation, Bunbury Regional Art Gallery, Bunbury (2024), Emergencies (Open Borders), The Creative Corner and the Holmes à Court Gallery @ Vasse Felix (2023), KANANGOOR/Shimmer, Lawrence Wilson Art Gallery (2023), 2021 Revealed Exhibition, Fremantle Arts Centre, Fremantle (2021). In 2022, Bell was a finalist in the John Stringer Art Prize. Bell’s works are included in the State Art Collection, Art Gallery of Western Australia and City of Fremantle Art Collection.
We moved on to a delicate banquet at KARLA – a dining room with a view of the city, taking inspiration from Asian cuisine cooked over flames. The word ‘Karla’ means fire in Noongar language. Thai-born chef, Ben Pienprasop, known for the iconic Chin Chin (Melbourne), and chef Sundoo Kim have created a menu of tantalizing tastes sources locally and making cunning use of native ingredients, weaving them seamlessly into traditional Asian favourites. Luxurious touches of hospitality spanned all areas of the experience; from the attentive service, cosy ambience and consideration to lighting and soundscaping, the overall experience was a cool cocoon on a hot February night. My only criticism would be the dessert – perhaps the peanut butter parfait was not as fluffy as it could be, but that could be because I’d already filled up so greedily on the previous courses and was too full to appreciate it. It was served with an Oreo cookie which seemed like a lazy gesture and undermined the classiness of everything else. Could they not find or make a better kind of cookie? I will never understand the popularity of Oreos. The chocolate ice-cream was excellent and intensely chocolatey. Memorable moments were the spicy edamame, a stunningly simple ceviche, grilled prawn skewers, and a market fish choo chee, with an asian apple salad, hot and sour sauce, fried shallots. Also the tom yam fried rice was tangy and paired well with everything.
Amanda Bell and Simpson family dinner
At KARLA, Yagan Square, Perth
Part of the annual Judy Wheeler commission, where an artist is commissioned to create a new site specific work in the stairwell area at PICA.
Badimia Yamatji and Yued Noongar artist Amanda Bell first started making art in 2017 while working as a full-time carer for her elderly mother. During this time of intense isolation, art became an important outlet and avenue for her to explore and connect with her cultural and familial heritage. Bell has since developed an expansive, experimental practice rooted in her interests in language and its enduring powers, and in exploring new ways of telling stories – through poetry, written word and imagery, together with sculpture, sound and installation.
Bell’s new commission F = m•a (five ways to make a rainbow) is the third Judy Wheeler Commission, an annual series of site-specific works that respond to the history and site of PICA. Using sunlight, sound and language, Bell’s work for PICA addresses the building’s history, acknowledging its construction on unceded land, a moment marked by colonial dispossession and violence. As Bell says, ‘In some of that story there is darkness. I will use light and sound to allow visitors to sit in discomfort. To see, feel and listen to voices and stories that linger with us today.’
On display throughout 2025, Bell’s installation channels and directs the sun’s light through the windows of PICA’s stairwell deep into the building’s recesses. The shifting interplay of light, sound and language with the architecture creates a captivating yet unsettling atmosphere, urging visitors to engage with their surroundings and reflect on the layered histories of the spaces we inhabit – what Bell calls ‘the very collision of building and boodja.’
Amanda Bell is a Badamia Yamatji and Yued Noongar artist woman living and working on Wardandi land in Goomburrup. Working with mediums such as video, sound, textiles, sculpture and installation, Bell’s wide-ranging practice is dedicated to ‘… trying new ways of telling stories that are sometimes uncomfortable and painful, sometimes fun and frivolous.’ Recent exhibitions include N’yettin-ngal Wagur – Yeye Wongie (Ancestors breath – Today talk), John Curtain Gallery, Perth (2024), South West Art Now 2024 (SWAN): A New Constellation, Bunbury Regional Art Gallery, Bunbury (2024), Emergencies (Open Borders), The Creative Corner and the Holmes à Court Gallery @ Vasse Felix (2023), KANANGOOR/Shimmer, Lawrence Wilson Art Gallery (2023), 2021 Revealed Exhibition, Fremantle Arts Centre, Fremantle (2021). In 2022, Bell was a finalist in the John Stringer Art Prize. Bell’s works are included in the State Art Collection, Art Gallery of Western Australia and City of Fremantle Art Collection.
We moved on to a delicate banquet at KARLA – a dining room with a view of the city, taking inspiration from Asian cuisine cooked over flames. The word ‘Karla’ means fire in Noongar language. Thai-born chef, Ben Pienprasop, known for the iconic Chin Chin (Melbourne), and chef Sundoo Kim have created a menu of tantalizing tastes sources locally and making cunning use of native ingredients, weaving them seamlessly into traditional Asian favourites. Luxurious touches of hospitality spanned all areas of the experience; from the attentive service, cosy ambience and consideration to lighting and soundscaping, the overall experience was a cool cocoon on a hot February night. My only criticism would be the dessert – perhaps the peanut butter parfait was not as fluffy as it could be, but that could be because I’d already filled up so greedily on the previous courses and was too full to appreciate it. It was served with an Oreo cookie which seemed like a lazy gesture and undermined the classiness of everything else. Could they not find or make a better kind of cookie? I will never understand the popularity of Oreos. The chocolate ice-cream was excellent and intensely chocolatey. Memorable moments were the spicy edamame, a stunningly simple ceviche, grilled prawn skewers, and a market fish choo chee, with an asian apple salad, hot and sour sauce, fried shallots. Also the tom yam fried rice was tangy and paired well with everything.
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