Artist Ciara Phillips creates 'dazzle ship' design

  • Published
Dazzle shipImage source, Ross Fraser McLean
Image caption,

The dazzle pattern has a Morse code message embedded within the design

A Glasgow-based artist has painted a massive design for a 72m (239ft) long ship as part of World War One centenary commemorations.

Turner Prize nominee Ciara Phillips is the fourth artist to be commissioned to make a dazzle ship design.

The work celebrates the untold histories of women during the war.

It was inspired by the team of women who worked under British marine artist Norman Wilkinson, who invented the dazzle technique.

Mr Wilkinson designed the abstract dazzle ship patterns and disorientating shapes to prevent the enemy from determining a vessel's range, speed and direction of travel.

Ms Phillips's work is entitled "Every Woman" and was co-commissioned by centenary art commissions body 14-18 NOW, external and Edinburgh Art Festival.

Image source, Ross Fraser McLean
Image caption,

Ciara Phillips used her artwork to celebrate the role of women during World War One

Image source, Ross Fraser McLean

A spokeswoman for the festival said it took the artist's medium of screen-printing to a "new scale", covering the entire surface of the ship with a "bold gestural design".

It was painted on the MV Fingal, a former lighthouse ship at Leith docks.

The design, to commemorate the centenary of the Battle of Jutland, also celebrates the women who worked as telegraphists and signallers during World War One.

It includes a message in Morse code embedded within the pattern in retro reflective paint reading "Every Woman a Signal Tower".

The message will shine out in the darkness, celebrating the ship's former role as a supplier to remote lighthouses.

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