Daniel Shipp is a contemporary Australian artist whose photographic works focus on and celebrate the overlooked, the forgotten and the discarded. Wild plants discovered in unremarkable public spaces; basketballs salvaged from the gutter; bikes abandoned in the street; in most people's eyes, these are forgettable objects undeserving of attention.
For Shipp however, each item is a treasure that carries stories from its past, speaks to its present and sings to an imagined future. With a touch of reverence, Shipp asks his viewer to consider afresh what we value, where we focus our attention - and what we care about.
Formally trained as a photographer, Shipp's images are highly constructed compositions that harness light and colour as narrative devices to elicit an emotional response. He is influenced by pop culture and the sheen prevalent in media images of the 1980s and 1990s. From early childhood, Shipp studied the illusory practices of pre-digital cinema and animation, admiring the feats of visual trickery accomplished by the cinematographers of the age. Inspired by the analogue techniques he studied, Shipp developed a bespoke method of image-making that is both familiar and surreal.
Shipp holds a Fine Arts degree from Sydney College of the Arts. He has won several prestigious awards including the Magnum and Lensculture Photography Award (2017); Bowness Photography Prize, (2015, Highly commended); an International Photography Award (2015) and Phototechnica New Australian Photo Artist of the Year (2001). He has exhibited nationally and internationally, and his work is held in private collections in Australia and around the world.
Botanical Inquiry is an ongoing series of works that began in 2014. Before picking up his camera, Shipp forages for wild plants in back streets and vacant blocks, seeking out examples of natural wonder in overlooked urban shrubbery.
The works reference the Romantic style of botanical illustration common in the 18th century and are the result of a bespoke method of image-making akin to a diorama.
Carefully constructed in the studio and then captured on camera, Shipp uses the visual effect techniques of pre-digital cinema to manipulate light, perspective and colour to create surreal suburban landscapes.
The juxtaposition of crisp colourful plants and a brooding urban background suggest that something is awry. The man-made world is dark and ominous while nature - in its most simple and humble form - appears to thrive. While the works hint at environmental decay, there is also a triumphant sense of nature trouncing adversity.