Zilverster (Goodwin & Hanenbergh): ZIlverster

Zilverster is the first collaboration at the gallery between Melbourne based artists SHARON GOODWIN and IRENE HANENBERGH.

ZIlverster was the girlfriend of a friend - a beautiful, alluring and mysterious woman, imbued with desirable female traits. She was gentle, empathetic, sexy; perfect in very way, except - as it turned out - not real at all. She was an archetype and a wonderful fiction, though one that was never completely dispelled.

ZIlverster is also the first public presentation of an ongoing collaborative project between Goodwin and Hanenbergh, artists who have garnesred strong individual reputations for their imaginative, elaborate and meticulously rendered drawing practices. What began four years ago as a problem solving exercise - with an artist offering problematic, unfinished works to the other for advice on resolution - has evolved into a joint practice whereby new drawings are created specifically for the other to complete.

While there are many shared interests and concerns between the two artists - (art) history, fantasy, cult iconography, alchemy, supernatural phenomena to name a few - each operates from a distinct temporal and imaginative framework. Goodwin's contributions are rooted in a medieval, Gothic context while Hanenbergh's derive from a Romantic sensibility. Through the process of swapping back and forward, the drawings undergo various concealments and transformations until by mutual consent deemed complete. Zilverster comprises a series of beautiful, fantastical drawings that are compelling in their strangeness.