Artist Statement
In my work, I create windows into other worlds, which sometimes act as mirrors into our own. I create images of distant, fantastical places which seem both familiar and yet, paradoxically, cannot be real. It is these glimpses of familiar yet fictional places that disarm,dislocate, and force a second glance. It is by granting the opportunity to look as outsiders onto another world that fantasy encourages us to re-examine our own. In her essay Why Americans are Afraid of Dragons, Ursula Le Guin makes this case by saying:

“Fantasy is true, of course. It isn’t factual, but it is true… and that is precisely why many are afraid of fantasy. They know that its truth challenges, even threatens, all that is false, phony, unnecessary,and trivial in the life they have let themselves be forced into living.”

It is my goal, through my work, to bring out that truth and to give the viewer an opportunity to question the world that has been made for them and that they have made for themselves.

Artist Bio
Lachlan Sheldrick is an emerging Canadian printmaker, writer, and visual artist currently living in Guelph, Ontario. Originally born in England to Canadian parents, Sheldrick grew up in different places across Canada including Winnipeg, Manitoba and Torbay, Newfoundland.He completed his Bachelor of Arts degree, double-majoring in both fine art and geography, at the University of Guelph in winter of 2019.

Working mainly in intaglio and relief, his recent printmaking work use reductive techniques and aquatint to produce images of fantastical places and people. Through this practice he seeks to find the “truth in fantasy” as a pathway to better understanding the world around us.