Expose - to cause to be

visible or open to view, to make known, bring to light, to cause (someone) to

experience something or to be influenced

or affected by something.

-Merriam-Webster

Our mission is to expose local talent in regional areas, and to create a connection between local artists, musicians, and the creative industries.

ISSUE 01

The little coastal town of

Byron Bay is known for its ever flourishing

Creative and performing arts scene. We delve deep into the bay to expose raw talent. These Artisans are the creative

minds of the future.

02

Rhys Fabris Art

Corner PsychedelicBaglady

TheStonery

410

16

20

03

BethanyRhyles

KIKIOliver

SnijdersBuffalogirl26

30

38

42

04

Rhys Fabris | Stay Wild.

06

Rhys Fabris is the name and art is my game. I have been practicing for the last ten years. I started off as a graffiti artist, doing rap tags and gang signs. As I got older I found myself painting to a wider variety of people. I really do have a true passion for paint and to create, I’m always working on something. I also enjoy to travelling and learning new and quirky things.

What inspired you to delve in graffiti art? I was always into art as a young kid I guess. I found myself always around other artistic and like minded people from a young age, which has always kept my eyes open. But I guess the rawness and public impact on people was really exciting alongside the fact I was creating a message for myself, for society to see and judge. Tell us about your experience as an artist in Byron bay. Is it an inspiring place to create? I find this place ever so humbling. There really is something special imbedded in this place. I find it so easy to create and come up with ideas and endless inspiration. Raw beauty.

What has been your favourite piece of art you have done? I have done a few favorites but just recently I did a wall in the Byron Bay Industrial area, alongside two mates, which came together quiet well. But these usually only stay my favorite until the next bigger and better project. Have you collaborated with many other artists? Yeah I guess so. Painting on a street level, I find it a lot easier to meet and collaborate with other artists. I paint most of the time with others real-ly. Just good friends and friends of friends. When you were little, what did you want to be when you grew up? I used to want to be a chef. Hah! Creating! I couldn’t think of anything worse now. (Laughs) If you were stranded on an island, and you were only able to have 3 things, what would they be? Black-book, Biro, radio.

Who are some of your favourite artists? A few cool cats I’m into at the moment would have

08

to be Sofles, Etam Cru, Shida, John Kaye and too many more to name. Are there any artists that have inspired your work? If so who and why? So many to name! Mainly my friends. Thats where I find most of my inspiration. I tend to find inspiration in the smallest things but I do love the energy possessed in the works of Salvador Dali. Such a genius. What themes do you pursue within your art? When I paint I try take on a natural flowing balance, consisting of flora and fauna usually with a hidden message or a mythical theme or story. Always add-ing new little things that catch my eye.

How has your practice changed over time? Considering I started as young boy running around streets and train lines and now I find myself paint-ing corporate and well paid commissioned pieces. I find it rather overwhelming some days, especially since I have been charged for graffiti before. I must say after ten years of doing this, it still feels like I started yesterday, and I dig the thought of that. What is your dream project? I have a few wild dreams. One is to Paint a mas-sive mural at least 3 stories high of all my favorites cartoons, in a time lapsed order. Haha! I love my cartoons. Professionally, what is your goal? Travel the world and paint smiles on every face I see. Sharing, caring and smile wearing.

www.barebonesartspace.com.au

10

At this point in my life the shape the Circle constantly amazes me. This shape seems to be following me It is constantly appearing in my daily life and mind. In my artworks, the circles represent my life as I feel I am going around and around with similarity and routine. I love using different me-diums and combining them together to create artworks that play with the viewers mind. My artwork is made on a device I have created that spins the canvas 360 degrees allowing

me to get the circles just right. Making this style of artwork is a lot of fun but it can make you feel really dizzy, as it is hard to concentrate to get colours in-be-tween lines. I always have music playing when making a piece as it make the whole process much more en-joyable. I don’t know too many work methods to making art that you can dance while making a piece!

Tom PrestonArtisanCorner

12

13

How I stream visual information is a very pure process for me. I map out a vision but with a purpose to investigate and exem-plify ideology, break down the common or prejudice or simply the unknown, passive and un-phased, by triggering people with contrasting imagery. The beautiful cannot exist without the ugly and vice-versa. I use reoccurring motifs and symbols; this is my language, re-con-textualizing styles and influences to rapidly indoctrinate an in-depth amount of knowledge

into my work. I have always been very captivated by anthro-pology and therefore humanities endeavours, social examples that give an insight into the populous mentality and development. I Layer various contexts to give people personal refer-ences and reflections. I create the utopia wrapped by the gloat of its realistic existence, the ugly, extreme, the nonsense, the organic to the synthetic and what happened in between.I like to ex-periment with different mediums, acrylic and watercolours, pastel, fine pen and ink tex-tiles, various embel-lished papers.

KathleenHarvey

14

Rufio uses inspiration from oceanic themes, personal experiences and tattoo designs to recreate conceptual, meaningful and dream-like drawings. He works with the mediums; pen-cil, watercolour, acrylic and Indian ink. He then touches up images in Adobe programs. His theme touches on surreal nature of por-trait drawing. He gains inspiration from facial expressions, lighting and different forms of organic patterns and shapes. The prominent style that Rufio has to his name is the way he embellishes patterns to give vivid explosion effect.

Matt (Rufio) Oberton

15

16

The Stonery is a collective Art space, jewellery store and studio in the Arts and Industrial Estate Byron Bay. The Stonery holds art exhibitions from time to time, showcasing the fine artists within this creative community. Inside the cabin ba-zar beholds many treasures of intrigue, unusual paraphernalia, flora and fauna in jars, intricate pieces of art, and crystals from here there and in between.

Artists Timo, Kathleen and Oliver opened the shop in October 2013, after three years of creating and selling at the various weekly Northern Rivers mar-kets and festivals. A group of creatives contrib-uted into fitting out the shop with all recycled and re-found materials including hardwood, rusty bits and unusual oddities.

The Stonery sources crystals, seeds, antique fab-rics and trinkets from their travels from all around the world. Fossicking is a part of The Stonery’s adventure into creation, and each stone that is

collected elsewhere is handpicked and ethically sourced. Constantly being inspired living in the luscious Jurassic surroundings of this area, their pieces emphasis the raw and pure essence of the materials they use.

With over 100 varieties of minerals in their collec-tion, the geological and esoteric aspects of the crystals is a passion of knowledge to discover and share with others. Crystals are medicine, wisdom connecting through energetic vibrations they can be used as talismans affecting individuals differ-ently, changing ones consciousness.

They cut and polish particular stones and embed by using silver, brass, waxed cotton to wrap, cro-chet and other experimental techniques to create individuality. They often like to keep the designs minimalistic accentuating the natural beauty of the crystals. Workshops and classes are held at The Stonery, excited to share and learn new skills from others.

The Stonery

17

18

19

21

22

23

24

25

26

When I walked into Terry Cronin’s Garage/ studio, one block back from Byron Bay’s teeming main drag, I am suddenly transported back to the ‘70s. Fleetwood Mac’s album ‘Rumours’ is playing on the stereo, colourful vintage surfboards are stored in the rafters, and every available space is taken up with Indian headdresses, ornate leather bags, decorative rocks and gems, and the intricate arti-san tools of her trade.

Terry is a self-taught leather worker in great de-mand from her custom, hand-made accessories, heavily influenced by American Indian and cowboy culture. The single mum and keen surfer can be found here in the crowded workshop/garage at-tached to a small timber cottage where she lives, at all hours of the day and night. “I get up in the morning, I work all day, I cook my boy dinner and get him to bed and then I’m back to work,” she says.But the hard work is paying off. Her Buffalo Girl

brand can now be found everywhere from the guitar straps of Nuevo-folk crooners Angus and Julia Stone, to the catwalks of Sydney Fashion week, to the photo shoots of Lisa Blue. “Sydney Fashion week was pretty amazing, to think here’s this little designer from her shed in Byron on the catwalk, and there’s all these amazing models strutting down and these cameras clicking. That was incredible.”

Terry grew up in New Zealand as an outdoors girl. Horse-riding and surfing, and is entirely self-taught as a leather worker. “I’ve always been in love with horse-riding and just love making my own things,” Terry says simply. “I could never find anything that I really liked, so I just started cutting up old jackets and making my own bags, creating my own things and doing jewelry as well, and it’s spiralled from that. I’ll just have an idea and I’ll come in here and create it, and it’s just amazing that there’s such a great response. People really love it.”

Terry Cronin has carved out her own niche with ornate, handmade, leather

bags, wallets, accessories, and an aesthetic strait out of the Wild

West.

Buffalo Girl

27

28

Buffalo Girl has been going for eight years and has grown steadily since local fashion retailer Island Luxe tribe discovered Terry at the locals markets and began stocking her products. “Helen at Island Luxe, she’s amazing, she’s just been a huge inspiration over the years.”

One of Buffalo Girl’s custom leather handbags re-quires around 20 hours labor and sells for just un-der $1000, but people seem more than happy to pay for quality and a unique handmade item. “It’s just my imagination. I’ve just picked up things over the years from leatherworkers,” she says. “There’s a guy in Ballina, Paul’s Custom Leather, I use to go hang around his leather store and hassle him and stuff. And then I’ve just learnt things through lots of trial and error. The problem is I just cannot keep up with the demand. I keep turning down all these amazing opportunities.”Recent highlights include a tour of the US, taking in Miami Fashion Week, and seeing the source

of American Western culture that has so inspired her up close. “I’ve just always bee obsessed with horses and cowboys and Indians. They don’t like you wearing the headdresses, I got into quite a lot of trouble.”

Terry’s biggest challenge now is managing growth while maintaining the integrity of her brand and the lifestyle she has forged around it. If the surf’s good she’ll still down tools to get a wave and, with all her work done by eye and hand, it’s difficult to outsource labor. “I’ll have to relocate because it’s getting too small It’s kind of exciting and scary, the future, how we’re going to keep creating keep creating and making beautiful things and still have the lifestyle.”

29

30

Bethany Ryles Photography

31

Photography

Bethany Ryles is on the rise as a freelance photog-

rapher and expanding her skills within film production. Embracing her surroundings

and the everlasting beau-ty of which Byron has to

offer, her life by the ocean inspires and influences her

conceptual Ideas. Cap-turing her unique vision

through shoots of lifestyle, creative arts, forest gypsy settings, festivals, commu-

nity events and musical art-ist profiles- she achieves in conveying her over all love and passion for imagery in hopes of engaging viewers on an emotive level as well

as visually.

34

35

36

mobile | 0433 049 430website | bethanyryles.com

instagram | bethanyrylesphotography_FB | https://www.facebook.com/

bethanyrylesphotography

www.stoneandwood.com.au

38

K I K IS

S i n g e r | S o n g w r i t e r

39

Kiara Wilmot (Kiki) has been surrounded by music and the arts her whole life. Her love for the arts stemmed from her upbringing, being raised by Her father, artist/illustrator, Jinesh Wilmot and mother Kavisha Mazzella, folk singer/songwriter. Kiki grew up going to folk and world music festivals, hearing many different types of world music, and experi-encing the culture of creativity. From a young age, she would sleep in her mother’s guitar case (when she could fit)! Kiki was born in Fremantle W.A. and moved to Mel-bourne when she was 5 with her mother. She lived there for 20 years being surrounded by many great artist and musicians.

Growing up in Melbourne, were there any particular Art forms that inspired you?Street art was a huge part of growing up in Mel-bourne. You are constantly surrounded by it. I would walk home from school, and see walls cov-ered in graffiti art. A lot of the time I would know or know of the artist, I have so much respect for street artists, and graffiti as an art form.

How has music impacted your life?The music scene in Melbourne is probably what

kept my passion for music alive, meeting up with fellow artist to create something beautiful. Music has really been what has saved me as a person. I suffered from depression for many years, and sometimes it comes into my life now and then…but music has been a bright light that will never fade. It’s what drives me to create something that I love.I am so grateful to have met some of the most amazing artists of my time,they are not rich in money, but rich in everything else. That’s what I believe makes a true artist.

What is your favourite style of music?I find this a hard question to answer when people ask me this! I think that all music is a language. If you don’t speak the language in the song, you can still connect with it on so many levels.

Who are some of your favourite artists?Erykah badu Little Dragon, Joni Mitchell, Chaka Khan, Tiddas, Lior, ben harper, Lauryn Hill, Sam Cooke, Cat Stephens, Bill Withers, Tribe called Quest, The Beatles, Bob Marley, Fleet Foxes, De la Soul, Ace of Bass, Alt J, Deep Forrest, Elvis, Eurythmics....the list goes on!

This is one of my favourite quotes from another of my favourite artists.

“Music is the last true voice of the human spirit. It can go beyond language, beyond age, and beyond colour straight to the mind and heart of all peo-ple.”- Ben Harper

42

Oliver SnijdersPhotographyS

43

44

49

mobile | 0413 232 258instagram | @oliver_snijdersFB | https://www.facebook.com/ oliver.snijders

w w w . r e t r o s p e c t g a l l e r i e s . c o m