Art Byron 2024 presents Jason Phu for 'Between Language' curated by Laith McGregor
Art Byron is a dynamic platform for contemporary art. The biennial gathering brings together outstanding artistic talent, creating an open forum for like-minded people to share, discuss, and explore contemporary art and culture.
“Art Byron strives to support the representation of leading Australian Art while connecting the local community in a gathering of ideas, understanding and shared knowledge. The biennial event encourages participation, collaboration and reflection of what is important in today's perpetual information age. The 2024 iteration welcomes open learning on ideas and thought in relaxed, inclusive and motived spaces. In an ironic turn of events, perhaps we all can take a little solace and heed some sage advice from Byron Bay’s iconic motto that greets every newcomer that enters the shire, and equally, Art Byron also welcomes you to ‘Cheer up, slow down and chill out’ ” Laith McGregor
JASON PHU
Jason Phu’s multi-disciplinary practice brings together a wide range of references, including traditional ink paintings, calligraphy, readymade objects, everyday vernacular, ancient folklore, personal narratives and historical events. Working across drawing, installation, painting, performance and film, Phu frequently uses humour as a device to address identity and cultural dislocation within an Australian context. Often employing stories of ghosts, spirits, demons and gods from Chinese culture as a personification of these concepts, Phu’s playful, deliberately naïve style and tongue-in-cheek subject matter convey a sense of connection to today’s world while being simultaneously timeless.
Jason Phu won the prestigious Sir John Sulman Prize in 2015, and the Freedman Foundation Travelling Art Scholarship, also in 2015. He has been a finalist in the Sulman Prize (2023, 2022, 2019, 2018), the Ramsay Art Prize, Australia’s premier prize for emerging artists (2017), the NSW Emerging Visual Arts Fellowship (2017), the Brett Whiteley Travelling Art Scholarship (2016), and the Archibald Prize (2023, 2015, 2014). In 2017, Phu was awarded the West Space commission, presenting the significant solo exhibition My parents met at the fish market. In 2019 he was awarded the inaugural Art Assembly commission for the Sydney Opera House, in 2021 he was awarded the ACMI X Mordant Family Moving Image Commission for Young Australian Artists. Significant group exhibitions include the annual curated exhibition Primavera 2018: Young Australian Artists, at Museum of Contemporary Art, Sydney, and Like a Wheel That Turns: The 2022 Macfarlane Commissions, at the Australian Centre for Contemporary Art, Melbourne, VIC.