WINNER - Rookwood Sensory Award
The Bell Tolls for Three (2022)
Plantation pine from fallen tree, copper, found marine rope, gloss enamel, stained glass and mirror
This bell tower stems from three earthly pillars, the triad being a sacred dynamic of symbology throughout major belief systems, linking the physical world with the divine realm. The toll of a bell holds deep significance for people of so many religions, mythologies and esoteric disciplines historically and throughout the world. The resonating sound invokes a vibrating passage between worlds. It is a calling of a community to a place of worship, the warding off of evil spirits, the voice of the divine, a meditative ritual of farewell at funerals; or as a prompt for the soul to disengage from the body in an incantation of sound.
About the Artist
Szymon Dorabialski lives on Gadigal Country in Sydney’s inner west. His practice exists as a personal enquiry into transcendental states of consciousness and as an observation of how the ‘divine’ experience comes to manifest within the restricted scopes of human epistemology. Stemming from interests in religion, pseudo science, eastern European paganism, metaphysics and psychedelics, Szymon’s sculptural installations and performances seek to take everyday objects, tools and refuse and ostensibly reconfigure them into symbols of worship. Szymon completed his MFA at Sydney College of the Arts in 2018. He has exhibited at Firstdraft, Our Neon Foe, MCA Art bar, Interlude Gallery and Cementa festival.
Transcription
My name is Szymon Dorabialski. This work is entitled the Bell Tolls for Three.
It is essentially a bell tower built from a fallen pine tree in a salvaged copper cylinder suspended by marine rope. The tree was sourced from a timber plantation past the Blue Mountains, Wiradjuri country. It is a place that my family and I hold very close as a reflection of our Slavic roots. It has grown to become one of my most spiritually felt places, as we passed through foraging for mushrooms, laughing, singing, sitting by a campfire till the late hours.
This bell tower stems from three earthly pillars, the triad being a sacred dynamic of symbology throughout major belief systems, linking the physical world with divine realm. The toll of a bell holds deep significance for people of so many religions, mythologies and esoteric disciplines historically and throughout the world.
The resonating sound in folks of vibrating passage between worlds. It is a calling of a community to a place of worship, the warding off of evil spirits, the voice of the divine, a meditative ritual of farewell at funerals or as a prompt for the soul to disengage from the body in an incantation of sound.
And so too I would like the viewers of this work here at Rookwood to take a moment of reflection through the symbolic gesture of tolling the bell.