ARTIST BIO

Shipsides was awarded the CQAF award, Belfast in 2023 (ha ha, Syzygetically Speaking). In 2017 he completed a moving image commission (Three Points Down to Zero) supported by AEMI and Dublin Docklands. He was awarded an AHRC Landscape and Environment Award in 2026 (Touchstone Testpiece), ACNI Major Artist Award in 2004 (Lateral Practice and Climbing), in 2000 won the Nissan Award IMMA (Bamboo Support) Dublin and 1998 won the Perspective Award, OBG, Belfast (The Stone Bridge). He (inc. Shipsides and Beggs Projects) has exhibited nationally and internationally including; Katzen Gallery, American University (Another Fine Mess), La Cuisine, France (Lament of the Accolade Tree), L'Orangerie Bastogne, Belgium (Still not out of the Woods), Microclima (Venice Biennale collateral, The Iron Way), ACCA, Melbourne (Desire Lines), The MAC, Belfast (Still not out of the Woods), Castlefield Gallery, Manchester (Radical Architecture), Arnolfini Gallery, Bristol (Elastic Frontiers), Platform Guranti, Istanbul (Hit & Run), Confederation Gallery, PEI, Canada (Beauty Queens), Golden Thread Gallery, Belfast (Beta), Temple Bar Gallery, Dublin (Pioneers), MCA, Sydney (Sporting Life). Smart Project Space, Amsterdam (Endure), Melbourne International Biennial, Australia (Signs of Life).

Absurdist, anarchist and pataphysical principles infuse Shipsides’ approach. Themes of unreliable language, occluded knowledge, ecological perspectives, unorthodox methods and speculative ‘what ifs’ and ‘why nots’ animate his work, underpinned by a slow and attentive phenomenological practice of being present. He has developed the term pata-perception to describe this mode of imaginative looking, doing and being.

Mountains, crags, waterways and coastlines hold a particular attraction, though woodlands are equally valued. His hybrid, cross-disciplinary practice encompasses drawing, print, video, sculpture, sound and other forms of making and doing.

Working across studio practice, teaching and everyday life, Shipsides’ work is informed by the experience of being a parent, an educator and an active participant in neighbourhood life. He believes that art should be entangled with the everyday and encountered in unexpected places, without the need to be popularised or simplified.