Howard495 is pleased to present Brobdingnagian, a solo exhibition of new photo collages by Toronto based artist Aaron Jones. Made by culling fragments from magazines, advertisements, newspapers, books and personal photos, this body of work is inspired by an exploration of his native Southern Ontario landscape. Jones largely uses collage in his practice as an instrument of self-exploration, to investigate societal constructs and to expose the method by which conflicting realties are forged.

By using collage in this way Jones explores and critiques cultural stereotypes, recontextualizing the images into something new and imagined. Inspired by a series of expeditions through familiar forests and rural landscapes, Jones has juxtaposed intimate, heavily layered collages with large format, photographed collage works.

Brobdingnagian, the exhibition’s title, is borrowed from Jonathan Swift’s novel Gulliver’s Travels, where Brobdingnag is a fictional land inhabited by giants. Brobdingnagian has today come to describe anything of colossal size. Enter Canada’s vast, monumental landscape, fused with the pressing need to tear down and expose cultural stereotypes and unveil the danger within the insididious nature of what is unseen.