Byron artist hits her stride post-Covid with striking solo exhibitions

JUSTINE Reilly always knew she wanted to be an artist, but her journey to where she is today — finally hosting her own solo exhibitions — has been a long one.

The Sunrise mum originally studied biomedicine at university before dropping out and landing a job as a graphic designer at a studio in Kings Cross. She enjoyed a successful career in graphic design and art direction and became involved in painting and dynamic drawing under the mentorship of Ron Curran after moving to the Byron region 20 years ago.

But it wasn’t until her main client, Qantas, grounded flights during the Covid-19 pandemic that Reilly shifted her focus back to art.

After participating in the Art with Heart fundraiser for the local homeless support initiative Fletcher Street Cottage, she was invited to exhibit at her favourite local café, Bayleaf, before her current solo exhibition at the new Byron CoLab.

“It’s been a long journey and it’s been an organic journey,” she said. “It’s only now at age 50 that I’m getting these big solo shows, which is just super.”

Titled Shifting, the Byron CoLab exhibition is the culmination of two years of work, featuring 22 large-scale acrylic mixed media pieces on canvas.

“It’s an exhibition that really comes from the heart,” Reilly said. “It’s a celebration of the joyfulness of womanhood, but I do also celebrate the androgynous, even though there’s some feminine forms there.”

Many of the works were inspired by live models, a practice Reilly says is imperative to her process.

“I love connecting with people,” she said. “Through my work I’m striving to get to the point of non-thinking, a stream of funnelling the unmanifest, into something real – I want to capture my psyche in a snapshot in that moment of energy, creating a piece that echoes a collision of honest expression of that connection or feeling.”

Shifting is showing at Byron CoLab on Arakwal Country in Byron Bay on weekdays until November 20.