Two unique female artists are exhibiting in the NAS Gallery - Chris
Byrnes and Barbie Procobis. One early visitor did say that it was the best joint exhibition she had
seen at NAS so Barbie and I will both take that as a welcome compliment to our
diverse art styles.
Gallery 1
Moving Forward While Looking Back
Chris Byrnes
How do I blog about my own work without sounding pretentious? Well here goes. In Gallery 1 Chris Byrnes is showing early
works from around 1996 onwards, predominantly printmaking works before her practice merged
into alternative and experimental photography.
Chris started classes at Newcastle Printmakers Workshop Inc in the 1990s
with Megan Lewis, Cherie Winter and Anne Maree Hunter as some of her first
teachers. Becoming a member of this
community art group provided opportunities to learn and exhibit as a
group. Chris was secretary for a number
of years, wrote proposals that saw exhibitions staged in local galleries and
gained funding for a project with Ribbons of Steel, the closure of BHP in
Newcastle. The works on the wall show
different techniques, black and white, colour, single and multi-layered
works. They speak about the history of art
making for this individual artist. Yes,
there is humour and tongue in cheek involved at times.
It was as a result of a solar-plate
etching (photographic) workshop which took Chris back around to photography and
works on paper. Chris is currently
undertaking a Master of Fine Art with the National Art School in Sydney and
exploring the way towards abstraction and how we ‘read’ and attach meaning to
the photographic image.
Website: www.chrisbyrnesartist.com
Email: cmbyrnes@bigpond.com
Gallery 2
Discarded Shrines
Barbie Procobis
I first saw Barbie’s work when she was a first year student exhibiting
a drawing at Watt Space. It was a self
portrait with a Holga and a Canon (I think) digital camera swinging around her
neck. Besides the fact that it was a
fine and beautifully rendered drawing, the title referred to ‘the medium being
the art’. I remember thinking this was a
very intuitive artist.
Some years later and Barbie is completing her PhD Candidature at the
University of Newcastle. The Gallery room
is staged in a series of alter-like tables draped in cloth. Each alter is lit by a single LED light
reminiscent of a single lit candle offered in remembrance. Barbie is burning a candle of investigation
and paying homage to the unknown, invisible writers of the discarded messages
and notes she collects. Barbie
references the writing with a finely detailed drawing based on her interaction
with the words themselves. Some writings
are only visible via the darkroom light of the photogram process.
Barbie talked about a trace of the writer being abandoned and left behind on the notes. The notes themselves now carry the DNA of the writer, anyone else who has touched it, and the artist as collector. There is the direct history of the writer as outlined by the message at the time it was written but the before and after story is unknown. Through her processes Barbie also collects time passed and brings it out into the present with her acceptance and investigation of the discarded artefacts from daily lives.
Fabulous drawings, photograms and sculpture from Barbie.
Website: www.barbieprocobis.com
Email: mail@barbieprocobis.com
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