Join Art Byron Curator, Laith McGregor and influential Australian artists, Lara Merrett and Shaun Gladwell for an exclusive evening of conversation, food and wine at Newrybar Hall on Thursday, March 28, 2024. The artists will be in conversation with Vault Magazine Editor, Alison Kubler who will discuss their practice, connection to Byron Bay and involvement in the 2024 iteration of Art Byron.

Lara Merrett’s practice interrogates the relationship between painting and its surrounding architecture with site-specific work that invites us to enter and navigate its folds. Merrett’s larger scale commissioned work has involved public participation through touch, movement, cuttings, and its relationship to the built environment. Her simultaneous agility, amplification and softening of the rigid confines of canvas and gallery, both complicate and honour painterly traditions. A site specific fabric installation will be created specifically for the Art Byron dinner.

Shaun Gladwell, is an Australian contemporary artist and freestyle skate boarder who has gained worldwide acclaim for his video art, paintings and photographs. Gladwell describes his video art as ‘performance landscapes’. An immersive and pivotal video work “Pacific Undertow” will be a highlight of the Art Byron festival. Gladwell uses disciplines of human movement to investigate function and meaning within urban, natural, and extended reality environments. His oeuvre is considered an important contribution to the cataloguing and celebration of movement based sub-cultures that have emerged within his generation. The artist has also been recognized for pioneering work with immersive, extended reality technologies and was the subject of a survey show Pacific Undertow held at the MCA in 2019.

Guests will enjoy a Papa Salt Coastal Gin cocktail on arrival followed by a three course dinner menu and matching wines curated by Argentinian chef, Franciso Smoie of roaming restaurant, Francisco’s Table.

Roaming for 10 years in the Northern Rivers Francisco is committed to championing local producers. He has an intimate relationship with each and every ingredient he uses, knowing where it comes from, who has grown it and their personal story.

Thursday, March 28
Newrybar Hall, Old Pacific Hwy, Newrybar
5.30pm-9.30pm
Tickets: $180 available online