OPENING NIGHT 5.00 – 7.00PM FRIDAY 12 MAY 2023
Reckonings is a group exhibition featuring ten emerging artists and recent graduates from the Byron School of Art – Chelsea Jewell, Eliza Worner, Grace Fayrer, Jennifer Oishi (Hogan), Joshua Vogel, Locky Hill, Max Hangan, Todd Clare, Victoria Clayton and Yuka Takagi.
The exhibition reflects on the various ways in which we confront and come to terms with our lived experiences. It encompasses the cognitive and emotional processes involved in accounting for our actions, the relationships and the roles we play.
Each work is a culmination of individual and collective experiences, perspectives and emotions, rendered through painting, drawing, sculpture, installation and multimedia.
Reckonings seeks to provoke conversations and to create a space for reflection and connection with each other and the world around us.
TODD CLARE BIO
Todd Clare is an Australian artist based in Dunoon NSW, on Bundjalung Country. Clare completed a three year Visual Arts course at Byron School of Art in 2022 and was awarded the Northern Rivers Community Gallery Graduate Prize. His work spans photography, music and mixed media, currently he is interested in the unpredictable nature of mark-making and the materiality of surfaces. Todd has exhibited in both group and solo shows locally and has been published in a variety of national and international magazines most recently Ignant Magazine. @toddclare www.toddclare.com
VICTORIA CLAYTON BIO
Victoria Clayton is an emerging artist who lives between Bundjalung and Gumbaynggirr Country in Northern NSW. After many years working as a designer and business owner, she studied Visual Arts at Byron School of Art for 3 years, graduating in 2022. She won the BAM student art award in 2022. She has exhibited in several group exhibitions and is inspired to respond to landscape and life forms as we are challenged by the Anthropocene, via oil painting and sculpture. @victoriasdaze
GRACE FAYRER BIO
Grace Fayrer was born in the South East of England in 1992 and immigrated to Australia in 2014. She is now based on Bundjalung Country. Through the interplay of short looped digital projection and sculptural materials, Fayrer explores the physical and conceptual boundaries of the frame, creating a dialogue between past and present, provoking thought and reflection on the nature of memory and time.
Fayrer was the recipient of the Tweed Regional Gallery Graduate Award 2022 and recently completed two years of study at the Byron School of Art, Mullumbimby in 2022. She was selected as a finalist for the inaugural Wollumbin Art Award by Curator Alison Kubler for Tweed Regional Gallery in 2022. @gracefayrer www.gracefayrer.com
MAX HANGAN BIO
Max Hangan is a queer, mixed media, emerging artist, with a penchant for found objects. Max resonates with the retained narratives held within the objects’ lineage, both real and imagined. The stories form the basis for Max’s assemblages, expanded field drawings, sculptures and installations.
Max graduated from BSA’s Research and Portfolio course in 2022. She was a finalist in the Wollumbin Art Award and also the Byron Art Magazine Art Prize in 2022.
Max lives and works on unceded land of the Bundjalung Nation. @max.hangan30
LOCKY HILL BIO
Based in Mullumbimby on Bundjalung Country, Locky Hill explores abstract expressionism by capturing gesture, shape, depth, and colour as he paints the unknown. He intuitively creates spaces that are ambiguous and open to personal interpretation, revealing subtle hints of his graffiti past while growing up in Sydney. His earlier years express a relationship to the urban landscape and its influences on the shapes and forms left behind by “anti-graffiti” removalists, a slang term known as “buffing” in the graffiti world. Locky’s practice reflects a contradiction of ephemeral actions in an ever-changing environment, showing the push and pull of one doing and another undoing. @lockrockin
CHELSEA JEWELL BIO
Chelsea Jewell resides in Burleigh Heads, on the lands of the Kombumerri and has both an art and architectural practice. The current works explore volume, massing and materiality in response to research based investigations centred around place and identity. Using a pared back vocabulary of line and shadow she creates topographic surfaces and volumetric maps. These constructions are designed to bring form to what is unseen, finding intersections of data, measurement, order, and documentation via wavering geometries that resolutely embrace inaccuracy and distortion. @chelsea__jewell
JENNIFER OISHI (HOGAN) BIO
Born in Sydney, now a longtime resident of Byron Bay, Jennifer is an emerging visual artist. Predominantly an oil painter, her images are filtered through memory and evolve through layering washes of paint. Bringing photographic effects onto canvas, experimenting with monochromatic painting and now a foray into abstract landscape, she continues to bring diversity to her practice, which also includes drawing, printmaking and ceramics. @jennifer_oishi_art
YUKA TAKAGI BIO
Yuka Takagi was born in Japan and spent her younger years growing up in Italy. After spending time in Tokyo, Takagi immigrated to Australia in 2016 and is now based in the Northern Rivers.
As a painter, by using fragile materials like plaster and natural pigments Takagi reflects the essence of human relationships. Her works embody her emotions, cultural differences and the changing values between generations. The delicacy of her surfaces ask the viewer to come closer, look carefully and consider slowly. @yuka_takagi_art
JOSHUA VOGEL BIO
Joshua Vogel is a 38-year-old emerging artist born on the south coast of NSW. He is currently living and working on Bunjalung country in northern NSW. He recently graduated from Byron School of Art in Mullumbimby. @somenewkindofkick
ELIZA WORNER BIO
Eliza Worner’s practice involves a material exploration of mark making and surfaces. Her work is process driven and conceptually rich, weaving threads of her personal narrative across multiple disciplines as she explores identity, connection and place within the context of her neurodivergence. @elizawornerart