2005 INDIVIDUAL ARTIST FELLOWSHIP RECIPIENT

John Shipman
Greenville
Emerging Professional: Visual Arts - Work on Paper

An exhibition designer for the Delaware Center for the Contemporary Arts, John Shipman presents other artists' work in the best possible light. As an artist, he produces pencil drawings, acrylic paintings and drawing installations in the form of large artworks created directly on a gallery wall. He has exhibited his work for more than 10 years and has numerous solo shows to his credit.

I believe art has a purpose-a reason for being made. As we live in a world of rational thought, where the mind thinks in understandable symbols (language and mathematics), artwork that mirrors an irrational side of life plays a necessary role as a balancing element. Artwork by its very nature has the ability to explore an idea beyond our rational thinking. It has the ability to reflect a side of the universe that is immeasurable and unquantifiable.

My paintings and drawings have become increasingly influenced by the Indian and Islamic miniatures of the 14th to 16th centuries. Their intimacy immediately relates to my subject matter of Love.

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