EXHIBITIONs OPENING at Ladder Art Space in Melbourne

Worlds of Hidden Landscapes: Jennifer Andrews

The littoral zone is where water and land metaphorically embrace.

Within the littoral the actual and the imagined combine and hidden landscapes emerge.

Littoral zones are where water and land metaphorically embrace. My drawings source the urban littoral zone of the Brisbane River and are referential of similar urban littoral zones globally – areas which are so easily overlooked in our hurried city lives. I see inner city mangroves as gracious and steadfast symbols of nature’s perseverance. I look in places where mangroves struggle to exist as they compete with inner city roads and bridges growing over the human altered riverbanks. Changing scale and combining images in new arrangements creates ambiguity and invites the viewer into a dialogue of interpretation and problem solving — the actual and the imagined entwine combine and hidden landscapes emerge. I am fascinated by the magnitude of movement in a tiny ripple the strength of purpose and survival instinct of the mangrove roots as they cling to the river’s edge as if it concealed precious gems — an extraordinary manifestation of our planet’s primal life force in action even within the urban environment.

Choose Your Character: Braden Howard

‘Choose Your Character’ is a collection of new works based off characters from my ever expanding universe. It contains paintings and drawings of these characters on paper and board with a heavy use of metal leaf and shiny materials.

It is influenced primarily from childhood memories of collecting cards and playing video games. The use of shiny materials such as metal leaf recreates the awe and excited feeling that I had when pulling a rare shiny collectable card from a trading card pack. The works on paper imitate collectable cards from a different world. With writings from untranslatable alien languages and gods from different parts of the realms while the artworks on boards showcase the divine beings that rule these realms.

The title refers to a phrase often found in video games when selecting a character to play as. Much like a character select screen ‘Choose Your Character’ features many unique characters weapons and items from my fictional worlds.

My current practice involves a fictional universe that I have created containing stories lore creatures strange planets and places magical beings and all-powerful gods a universe that contains all the artworks I make in some way or another. The focus of the exhibition is to further flesh out my world building practice creating many different characters that will be later featured in other artworks and will add to the foundations of the origins of my universe.

Host or Publisher Ladder Art Space