August 5th – 20th, 2022
Opening Reception August 5th 6-10pm

Bell Projects
2822 E.17th Avenue
Denver, CO 80206

I am nature, the universal mother, mistress of all the elements, primordial child of time, sovereign of all things spiritual, queen of the dead, queen of the immortals, My nod governs the shining heights of heaven, the wholesome sea breezes, the lamentable silences of the world below. I know the cycles of growth and decay.

— Visions of Apuleius (Metamorphoses II)

Brenda Stumpf makes art that conjures the mysterious and enchanted — sometimes diving into the dark and hiding in the secretive. As she works, she is often feeling her way towards something that seems deep, ancient, and timeless by way of the abstract and symbolic.

In her latest exhibition Tendrophia, Stumpf presents four large scale assembled paintings, and a selection of found object sculpture along side a new series of nine mixed media ink transfers.

Tendrophia is a portmanteau, or a blended word, that is derived from the phrase “tendrils of Sophia.” In the ancient Gnostic tradition Sophia is the feminine personification of wisdom – knowledge revealed to us intuitively and perceived as spiritually true. In contemporary terms, Carl Jung links the figure of Sophia to the highest archetype of the anima. “Nature mysticism” which was popular with Romantic writers such as Walt Whitman and William Wordsworth is described as an intense experience of the unification with nature or the cosmic totality.

Elaborate and dense, Stumpf’s large scale assemblages function as enchanted reliquaries and incorporates an array of elements such as childhood artifacts, plastic flowers, removed antique wallpaper, a rusted wheel barrel, broken antique chandelier pieces, a found run over book, jewelry, and a wasp. They are encapsulated in alternating layers of a thick gel medium containing micro glass beads and sand, making everything appear crystalline and calcified.

In her most recent series, the artist uses an ink transfer process with photos taken during her time in France as a foundation or starting point to the physicality of the pieces and as an invocation to the heart of the work. They are developed by building up and breaking down layers of paint, gel medium, sand, and rust by scratching and scraping the surfaces – a forced decay. In essence, these paintings are a meditation on the lushness of nostalgia and the passing of time.