Words on a Wall That's All by David Bellingham

David Bellingham is an artist who combines many genres in his work. In these exhibitions he is executing wall text by painting directly on the wall; for the Dundee exhibition he has made a piece entitled words on a wall that's all (2011). In addition, he has made a sculptural piece called pearls (2011). His work is characterised by a sense of humour and a playfulness with words as elusive signs. Or rather, more precisely, he delights in re-presenting to viewers experiments by which he strips words of meaning, or reinvests them with meanings that step outside of convention. By virtue of this close scrutiny—and playful assemblage of materials—he draws attention to ways in which our visual environment is often coded and decoded in language. In the case of these exhibitions, he ‘performs’ words as well as produces art. The painting of the text on a gallery wall is, quite literally, ‘the writing on the wall’, as we say in idiomatic phrase, meaning forecasting and soothsaying.

David Bellingham is an artist of near total obscurity, who scratches a living making and mending. His work is occasionally to be found in the regions but it does not stay long and it is hard to spot. You will not have heard of him before and you may never hear of him again. He was born in South London and lives and works in Glasgow.