Shelley Gipson

These images are odd juxtapositions of gravity and expression, of joy and anxiety.  The figure is both falling and floating, imprisoned by ancient forces in a fragile state of unrest, a kind of limbo.  They encapsulate the parent child relationship in a world that is turned upside down.

The images that you see reflect defiance, death, aggression, solitude, strife and survival. They are textural, degraded, fragmented or informative.   They represent physical and emotional veils, specifically those between parent and child and between innocence and awareness. 

East Texas Poet, Cyd Adams once described his mother as cast iron.  This analogy highlights the strength, stubbornness, adaptability and legacy of the women of Sabine County, Texas.  Combined with a treasure found in "Sister's Box," these works explore an often unknown history of family, creating legends and narratives for names of long-lost ancestors and placing them with unnamed photographs. They tell a tale of love and loss, strife and survival that has a uniquely frontier quality.

These works bring mother and daughter together to capture childhood with all it's humor, drama, and nostalgia.

These women are haggard, battered and worn, but retain a sense of dignity and self-worth.  They are inspired by memorial cemetery sculpture, once beautiful, now ravaged by time and place. The ugly, withered old woman is simply misinterpreted.   The marks she bears are witness to her burdens, forming a shell of cast iron.

In these series, the viewer is invited to become a witness to this action or event, seduced by sensual surfaces and morbidly beautiful forms.   History informs imagery and titles, drawing inspiration from historical photographs from WWII, mummies, and film.  Print or paint, the image is manipulated, degraded and fragmented. In the larger works, labor intensive non-brush layers create a highly textured surface inspired by the clay of Deep East Texas. Forensic science and mystery, death and decay, despair and hope combine to create dark and foreboding imagery.

These works explore aggression and intimacy, love and solitude, strife and survival.  They are representations of women as they are conceived, idealized, scrutinized, and abused by men in the workplace and at home.

These digital works explore death and rebirth.  They are a memorial to the piles of horrible family photographs from a time when film was actually developed.

These works explore the passions of life revealed in the human form. Conflicting emotions are exposed in beautiful, fragmented forms. Memory and nostalgia clash. Defiance and aggression, death and ecstasy, aggression and intimacy, love and solitude, strife and survival are contained revealed in the work.