BIOGRAPHY
Alexandra Byrne is a practicing artist from western Sydney and based on the Mid-North Coast of NSW, Australia. Her interdisciplinary approach to studio practice has concentrated predominantly on sculpture and drawing but also includes installation, painting, photography and print. Alex’s work searches for ways to articulate experiential and often ineffable aspects of phenomena in the physical and psychological relationships between the natural and human world. In recent years her attention has focussed on aspects of climate change and how we perceive the relationship of our day-to-day life with the broader philosophies, social impact, scientific discoveries and environments of this age.
Alex has combined her intimate knowledge of artmaking with over 25 years experience working in technical roles within arts education and community arts organisations. She asks, “How do you resource the adult imagination?” Engaging in making environments, for her, provides a way to support both experienced and developing adult imaginations that are so crucial for solving 21st Century problems.
“My work explores the constituent parts of a complex whole and the relationships between those parts whether literal, physical, symbolic and/or metaphorical. It is intrinsically an extension of my relationship with those things.”
A finalist in the Adelaide Perry Prize for Drawing (2020), Tim Olsen Drawing Prize (2015) and the Dobell Prize for Drawing at the Art Gallery of New South Wales (2011), Alex has also been the recipient of the following prestigious awards: winner of the Local Artist Award (Blacktown City Art Prize 2015), joint winner of the Open Sculpture Prize (AquaSculpture 2007), the Basil and Muriel Hooper Scholarship (2007/8), the Tom Nelson (Maritime Union of Australia) Artist Subsidy (Sculpture by the Sea, Bondi 2008), the A&E Metal Prize for Sculpture (COFA 2008). In 2009 she was awarded a University of NSW Honours Year Scholarship where she completed a Bachelor of Fine Arts with First Class Honours at the College of Fine Arts. Following this, Alex went on to further study completing a Master of Fine Arts (Research) at UNSW Art & Design in 2016. Her work has been exhibited both nationally and internationally and is held in public and private collections in Australia, Bulgaria, Hong Kong, the Netherlands and the USA.