A DOLLAR artist has unveiled a permanent outdoor installation at Jupiter Artland, West Lothian.

Now based in Glasgow, video artist Rachel Maclean has proudly presented her work entitled upside mimi ᴉɯᴉɯ uʍop in what is her first permanent outdoor commission.

Three years in the making, the ground-breaking installation combines animation and architecture, taking the form of an abandoned shop on the high street – situated in the woodland at Jupiter Artland outside Edinburgh.

Inside the building, an abandoned toy shop, Maclean reveals the upside-down world of her darkly arch cartoon character Mimi, who takes people into the topsy-turvy world of end-game capitalism.

The work has taken Maclean's usual interests – including gender, femininity, body image, identity, late-era capitalism – and her flamboyant aesthetics into uncharted waters.

Speaking to the Advertiser's sister paper The Herald, the artist said: "I really liked the idea of a building in a forest, for it to have the Hansel and Gretel feeling of you coming across this candy-coloured building drawing you in, but then what's inside it is darker and more difficult than it seems on the surface."

In essence, the work is a 21st century fairy tale about the experiences of young adults and consumerist desire.

The animated film within the building deals with the pressures facing young people in the shadow of the pandemic, online culture and the decline of real life spaces, the fear of ageing and the corrosive effects of social media.

Maclean remarked how Dollar was a fairly tale background when growing up, and added: "I guess Dollar is an almost chocolate-box Scotland.

"It's got the hills and the glens and the castle and all of that stuff that as a tourist you might expect to find in Scotland. There is a fantasy aspect to it as a place."

Posing for pictures and giving interviews, Maclean was dressed as if she popped straight out of a cartoon herself and her love of dressing up also goes some time back.

The artist said: "I'm quite shy. But I've always liked dressing up.

"One of my earliest memories was dressing up as a popcorn box for the Dollar Gala, which is maybe when I discovered some part of my personality that has been difficult and useful.

"I get quite obsessed with an idea and then I've just got to do it.

"I just had to be the popcorn box and it was this obsession for at least a month and then I did it and I was like: 'Oh, well, it's okay'."

Maclean's upside mimi ᴉɯᴉɯ uʍop is on permanent display at Jupiter Artland and a supporting exhibition of her work continues until July 18 as well.