Rielle Shipman

Rielle Shipman is an artist currently working in painting and drawing disciplines to investigate relationships of materialism and consumerist culture through the practice of abstraction. With an additional interest in the current world state and global pandemic, Rielle produces works that reflect the isolation that is experienced from enforced quarantine restrictions. The connection between confinement of interior space and excessive consumption is highlighted through her enigmatic drawings of objects that occupy living space.

This body of work focuses on objects reimagined and interpreted through the mental use of sculpture to construct a more complex composition of accumulated subject matter. Multiple mass-produced objects are selected, deconstructed, reconfigured, and merged into the existence of a new cohesive form. Vine charcoal is primarily used to capture an essence of form that inhabits a vague sense of familiarity while also providing ample expression and a quality of animism to the objects. Other works include a more vast use of materials including india ink, gouache, coloured pencil, graphite, conté, and chalk pastel to create heightened realistic renderings of the subject matter. Ranging from minimal to highly detailed, each drawing encompasses a sense of aliveness that conveys the ability of power that material items can have in relation to us.

Our environments are often bombarded with consumerist ideals and constructs where objects dominate our everyday spaces. With added constraints of movement and limited viewings, we are confronted more than ever by our surroundings and the overbearing amount of ‘things’ that consume them. Rielle’s work aims to explore these ideas while creating interesting and dynamic spaces constructed solely by overlooked objects that ultimately govern our lives.

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