In addition to lead exhibitions Lesley Dill and Ian Hamilton Finlay: Arcadian Revolutionary and Avant-Gardener, deCordova Sculpture Park and Museum is pleased to present Platform 13: Roberley Bell, The Shape of the Afternoon.

DeCordova’s long-standing Platform series continues with two innovative projects by artists Roberley Bell and Alix Pearlstein, each opening Friday, May 16. Platform is a series of exhibitions by early- and mid-career artists from both the New England and national arts communities. These shows engage with deCordova’s unique indoor and outdoor spaces and social, geographical, and physical location.

DeCordova’s Rappaport Roof Terrace and adjacent gallery will be transformed into a fantastical faux sculpture garden in Platform 13: Roberley Bell, The Shape of the Afternoon. Amoeba-shaped Astroturf, real and fake flowers, abstracted bird decoys, plastic fruit, resin planters, and Blob sculptures will come together in Bell’s colorful comingling of nature and its synthetic counterpart. In addition to her outdoor gardenscape, the artist will also transform the adjacent interior gallery into a domestic scene with plush carpet, painted walls, and shelves displaying a still-life tableau.

Bell’s work questions the natural in daily life by placing the copied, altered, and designed flora of the built landscape in direct relationship to living nature. Through brightly hued material juxtapositions, her installation The Shape of the Afternoon challenges the distinction between natural and artificial, and explores the human desire to control the surroundings.

Roberley Bell (born 1955, Massachusetts) lives in New York. She attended the University of Massachusetts and received her MFA from Alfred State College, SUNY. Bell's work has been exhibited internationally, including at the State Tretyakov Gallery, Moscow; Dieu Donne Gallery, New York; Virginia Museum of Fine Arts; and Paul Petro Gallery, Toronto. She is the recipient of two fellowships from the New York Foundation for the Arts, a Pollock Krasner Fellowship, and a Fulbright to the Netherlands.

Platform 13: Roberley Bell is generously funded by James and Audrey Foster.

All images: Roberley Bell, The Shape of the Afternoon, 2014. Photograph by Clements Photography and Design, Boston.