----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Shot on location in popular local and international attractions in different countries around the world, Mandy Lee Jandrell's work reflects on our enduring emotional investment in utopian dreams of paradise.

Mandy Lee Jandrell scours the constructed leisure environment – wildlife parks, zoos, botanical gardens, historical recreations and theme parks – for her subject matter, exploring the pre-packaging of our perceptions of the ‘real’ and the belief systems that sustain them. Her photographs bring into focus the mutually dependent nature of ideologies and cultural practices, where leisure environments are constructed to appeal to the aspirations of the economic and ideological systems with which they are intertwined.

Jandrell’s mode of operation veers between the amateur snapshot, evoking the engrained practices of cultural tourism, and the apparently more objective full frontal gaze of the professional documentary photographer. The casual humour of her work toys with our unblinking acceptance of these pictorial languages.

Since completing her MA at Goldsmiths College in 2003, Mandy Lee Jandrell’s quietly observed photographic work has been consistently attracting critical acclaim with her inclusion in the Whitechapel Gallery’s East End Academy in 2004, an exhibition of twenty-two of London’s most promising young artists, selected by an international panel. Commissioned by the Government Art Collection in 2004, she produced a series of 5 works (from a body of work shot in China the previous year), for an exhibition in Ante Room of 10 Downing Street.

Mandy Lee Jandrell was born in Pretoria, South Africa in 1975, and first studied art at the National School of the Arts in Johannesburg in 1993. She completed her BA degree in Fine Art with distinction, at Michaelis School of Fine Art, University of Cape Town, in 1998. While a student she was a member of The Sluice Group, an art group that collaborated on a major multi-media installation and performance event in 1996 at The Castle of Good Hope, and with whom she exhibited work at the Second Johannesburg Biennale, curated by Colin Richards and Okwui Enwezor, in the following year. She is currently registered as an Fine Art MPhil/PhD practice led research student at Goldsmiths College. Jandrell has lived in London since 1998 where she continues to live and work.

She has exhibited extensively in the UK and abroad in countries including the USA, South Africa, Austria, and Germany. Solo exhibitions have included: Safari at Bearspace in London (2005); Where the Grass is Green, at Mead Gallery, University of Warwick (2004), and Take Photo Here, at Joao Ferreira Gallery, Cape Town, South Africa, (2004). Recent groups shows have included: Changing Spaces, Photofusion, London (2008); Latitude NYC, NYCams Gallery, New York (2008); Reclaimed, Focalpoint Gallery, Southend-on-sea (2007); Make it a Better Place, Holden Gallery, Manchester (2007); Zoo Art Fair, London (2006); New Utopia, at Bearspace, London (2006); 8x8x8 MSP/NYC/LON, at The Soap Factory, in Minneapolis, USA (2006); Green, Winchester Gallery, University of Southampton (2006); London Now, The Arts Center, St. Petersburg, Florida, USA (2005); Mooimarkshow Wien-Johannesburg, at the Kunsthalle Exnergasse in Vienna (2005); Cinderella, London (2004), UK; X-hibition, Stephen Lawrence Gallery, London (2004); East End Academy, Whitechapel Gallery, London, (2004).

Over 2006 she worked with Bob and Roberta Smith, Jessica Voorsanger and The Serpentine Gallery on a project with The North East London Mental Health trust. The results of the collaboration with users of the trust were shown in an exhibition titled “Hearing Voices/ Seeing Things” at the Serpentine Gallery with a publication to coincide with the project.

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------