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In earlier work Shipside has explored the operations of European landscape painting by constructing environments with relatively straightforward imagery of trees, mountains and so on. Indeed her representations have worked on the level of signage; a wooden board, cut out in the shape of a pine tree and painted green stands up-right secured to a post. For her OUTPOST installation Shipside takes on the task of re-discovering "tropical" landscapes, where the deconstruction of popular imagery (rather than its simplification) is attempted.
Albrecht Durer's 1515 woodcut of a rhinoceros, pictures this peculiar "new" creature as if it wears medieval armour, its tough skin interpreted by reference to a garment known for its strength. In Shipside's installation – as with the 16th century Rhino encounter - the unfamiliar in nature, can only be imaginatively approached via the recognisable qualities of the known. Our appreciation of the ‘tropical' is largely set outside our everyday experience; the forthcoming presentation allows us to apprehend the former from within the latter.
Bess Shipside graduated from the Norwich School of Art and Design in 2007. She currently lives and works in Norwich.
