Downtown, Los Angeles
Talia Shipman
Meet Me In The Middle
Chimento ContemporaryChimento Contemporary is pleased to co-present the first solo exhibition of Talia Shipman’s multidisciplinary works with Back Gallery Project from Vancouver. Combining elements of photography, video, and installation, Meet Me In The Middle focuses on pressing social issues in a visually robust manner. Through this project, Shipman is able to construct a necessary conversation about the state of our precarious world. Meet Me In The Middle imagines a post-apocalyptic future where water and crucial resources have been replaced by consumer goods. Taking note of the capitalist drive to acquire and absorb popular culture through new technologies, Shipman offers a confluence of video and photographic composites that are further enhanced by myriad sculptures of vibrant turquoise cacti. Drawing on the color of these statuesque plants as a metaphor for water and its inherent fluidity and transformative properties, the artist explores the environmental impact of human activity while also commenting on her own quest for identity in the face of global crisis. Talia Shipman was raised in Vancouver and currently splits her time between Los Angeles and Toronto. She received her BFA in Photography from Ryerson University, School of Image Arts. Her installations and images are part of several prominent collections including permanent public projects Blue Space (Water Wall) (2015) and Water is Taught by Thirst (Submerge) (2015) on display in Toronto's Bay Street Financial District, and Flow and Steady (2017) at Toronto’s new Humber River Hospital. Meet Me In The Middle was recently acquired by the HBC Global Collection as a permanent installation in New York. Additionally, Shipman is a multi-year recipient of the Magenta Foundation Flash Forward emerging photographer award, and has exhibited widely in Canada, the US.