For Jinibara artist Jennifer Kent, Horizon Sunshine Coast's 2025 exhibition Scene Through The Screen presented an exciting opportunity to not only collaborate with fellow Jinibara artists, but to also delve head first into a new artistic practice – screen printing.
Scene Through The Screen is a striking visual art exhibition of new work exploring the screen printing process to celebrate the stories of Jinibara artists - the Traditional Custodians of the mountains, valleys and hinterlands of the Sunshine Coast.
“This was my first time [doing screen printing]”, Kent says. “I do other art. I do murals, canvases and digital art. I’m a big digital artist so I guess that’s why I took to screen printing really well. It’s been amazing learning new things and working with a different texture of paint.”
Jennifer Kent
Kent, whose ancestry trails back from the the Jinibara, Waka Waka and Quandamooka tribes, was approached to take part in the exhibition by fellow artist, Jason Murphy. The two met at a native title meeting where JPAC (Jinibara People Aboriginal Corporation) were invited, and it is there that she not only met Murphy but also learnt about the Birdwing Butterfly, a butterfly that is native to Queensland and ultimately became the inspiration for one of her artworks in Scene Through The Screen.
“We were talking about some of the endangered species and one that I really took to was the Birdwing Butterfly. I just fell in love with this butterfly. They are the most beautiful things. The boys have these green and black wings which are so bright and vibrant and the girls are brown and yellow.”
“The reason they are endangered is they need a host vine to survive but the vine that they use for reproducing and planting their eggs on has been endangered. It used to live all over the South East of Queensland but due to colonisation, urbanisation and deforestation has seen the vine taken away from the environment – it’s sad to think we as people could destroy this species and beautiful animals because we didn’t plant the right vine for it.”
Kent hopes to raise awareness for the Birdwing Butterfly with her piece, A Lovely Hope. “The local city councils are aware and you can get these vines from any of your local city councils and a lot of the nurseries are aware of it too, but people aren’t aware of it and don’t really know what’s going on. I created this artwork to raise awareness and encourage people to go out and get a plant and plant it in their garden, and to do their part to save this species from extinction.”
Nature is a theme in Kent’s other exhibiting works, The Bee's Knees, which pays tribute to the Native Black Bee which is a totemic symbol to many families in the South East coast of Queensland. . . And Jinibara-Dja which she describes as a “Where’s Wally-type piece”.
“There’s all these beautiful details in the piece where you can look for frogs' feet and goanna traps. It’s kind of educational as well.”
Her fourth piece, Shield Of Faith, is about faith being a spiritual shield. “It’s a reminder that we are shielded by a force eyes don’t fully perceive.”
Kent hopes her artworks will educate patrons and inspire them to learn more about the Jinibara people and culture. “I really love helping people to gain knowledge and better themselves, and in the end if the blind leads the blind we can fall in a ditch, but if we share knowledge and awareness we can do something about it and we can make the world a little bit better through the light of knowledge.”
“I hope people walk away feeling inspired to have that little bit more knowledge about what they can do for our country and our environment – whether that’s planting a vine and helping endangered species like a butterfly, as you never know what a difference one vine can make for one butterfly.”
Scene Through The Screen is on at Mary Cairncross Scenic Reserve from 2-11 May as part of Horizon 2025. Horizon is on across the Sunshine Coast from 2-11 May.
