GEORGE BYRNE
LOCAL DIVISION
OLSEN IRWIN SYDNEY FEB 10 - 28 2016 W W W.O L S E N I RW I N .C O M
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63 J ERSE Y ROA D WO OLL A HR A 2025 NSW
T E L E P H O N E + 61 2 9327 39 2 2
F A X + 61 2 932 7 394 4
E MAIL INFO@OL SENIRWIN.COM
+ BIOGRAPHY
George Byrne’s L.A. series ‘Local Division’ resonates with a quiet, deductive intensity. Borrowing from the clean, vivid clarity of modernist painting, Byrne also references the New Topographics photography movement via a subject matter firmly entrenched in the urban everyday. Byrne’s oeuvre is to spin L.A.’s most disposable architecture and redundant landscapes into seismic moments. He seeks the subliminal and sublime in the everyday.
Born in Sydney in 1976, Byrne graduated from Sydney College Of The Arts in 2001, travelled extensively, and then settled in Los Angeles in 2010 where he has been focusing on his photographic practice. Byrne started using Instagram as a visual scrapbook in 2013, his gallery (@george_byrne) has evolved to become an important and popular extension of his broader art practice.
+ W AT C H T H E V IDEO
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GEORGE BYRNE LOCAL DIVISION
“ George Byrne captures the poetic vacancy of that idyllic wasteland otherwise known as L A. As he wanders the empty dwellings of dreams and desires both lost and realised, his images convey a calmed and contented kind of lonely, spontaneous yet somehow staged, as he awaits that instantaneous moment of movement within his chosen mise-en-scene.” + JESSICA HOLBURN C U R AT O R , C H A S M G A L L E R Y, B R O O K LY N N Y C
“ Local Division is a window into a place where dreams come true and people become demigods, but in Byrne’s work we see the city without it’s make-up, and perhaps, in all it’s glory, the true and despairing beauty.” + BRENDAN COWELL AUSTRALIAN WRITER, ACTOR & FILM MAKER
“ George Byrne has the unique ability to make the mundane seem extraordinary. Cracks in a neglected city wall emerge as one of life’s valuable textures and small forgotten pockets of the world become a focus of intrigue and intense beauty. George brings a remarkable presence and clarity to vignettes of every day L A life.” + ALAN JONES AUSTRALIAN ARTIST
GEORGE BYRNE LOCAL DIVISION
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Local Division Plates
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+ TEMPLE ST 2015
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+ MOTEL GRAND 2014
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+ THE VALLE Y 2015
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+ 7_1 1 V E N I C E 2015
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+ HOTEL POOL #1 2015
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+ WA S H I N G T O N B LV D
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+ C A R PA R K , H O L LY W O O D B LV D 2015
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+ CHINA TOWN 2015
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+ MELROSE AVE 2015
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+ WHITE PALM 2015
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+ GREEN & WHITE #2 2015
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+ ACE HOTEL S TH BROADWAY 2015
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+ PICO 2013
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+ 99c S I LV E RL A K E 2015
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+ MIAMI #1 2015
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+ COWBOY 2015
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+ BLUE ON BLUE #2 2014
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+ BOYLE HEIGHTS 2015
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“ Here was the endlessly mute placidity of nature, indifferent to the great city; here was the desert beneath these streets, around these streets, waiting for the city to die, to cover it with timeless sand once more.”
+ JOHN FANTE ASK THE DUSK
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GEORGE BYRNE
+ CV
B O R N 1 9 76 , S Y D N E Y
E D U C AT I O N
GROUP EXHIBITIONS
Fort St High School
2 0 1 6 Monograph
1 9 89 - 1 9 94
SOHO, NYC
Bachelor of Arts Sydney University
2016
1996 - 1998
FOCUS Photo LA The Reef / LA Mart
Bachelor of Visual Arts Sydney College of the Arts
2015
MY LA Hive Gallery, Los Angeles
1998 - 2001
SOLO EXHIBITIONS
2015
2014
Local Division (Contact Photo Los Angeles) Instant Sydney, Melbourne, Brisbane
2013 Insta La Hemingway and Picket, Los Angeles
2015 Australian And Contemporary Photograph Olsen Irwin Gllery Sydney 2 0 1 4 Astray
Group show with CHASM Gallery Brooklyn, NY
2014
Other Desert Spaces Group show with CHASM Gallery Brooklyn, NY
Almost Neighbors The Know Where Bar Los Angeles
2 0 0 0 DEGREES
SCA Third Year Exhibition @ newspace
2000
Yellowglen Young Photographer of the Year Traveling Exhibition Sydney (Byron Mapp) – Melbourne – Brisbane – Adelaide.
2 0 0 2 Italy
2001
2000
Span Gallery, Melbourne CBD Italy Global Gallery, Paddington India - New Perspectives Global Gallery, Paddington
GR ANTS & AWARDS 2016 2015 2014
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Finalist Head On Photo awards Finalist Head On Photo awards 2001 $5000 traveling grant from Lavazza as principle sponsor for interstate ‘Italian Style’ Exhibition 2000 Artists Grant of $500 from the Govt. of India Tourist Commission 2000 2nd Place ($1000), The Yellowglen Young Photographer of the Year Award 1999 Runner-up in the Sydney Morning Herald Jeffrey Smart ‘Moments’ Competition 1998 2nd Place in IMAGE Magazine Student Competition 2010
P U B L I C AT I O N S 2014
2 0 0 9 Recollections
Charles Hewitt Gallery, Paddington
2012
Finalist FOCUS Photo LA Finalist Head On Photo awards Finalist Head On Photo awards
British Journal Of Photography Paper Sea LA Canvas Monster Children Focus Magazine Assemble Papers Nourished Journal LA ‘Where – Guestbook’ The MANIFESTO NO Magazine Harpers Bazaar (USA) Manifesto Magazine (Aus) if MAGAZINE Oyster Magazine REMNANTS IMAGE Magazine
GEORGE BYRNE LOCAL DIVISION
+ C O N TAC T
OLSEN IRWIN
63 JERSEY ROAD
SYDNEY
WO OLL A HR A 2025 NSW
FEB 10 - 28 2016 W W W.O L S E N I RW I N .C O M
T E L E P H O N E + 61 2 9327 39 2 2 F A X + 61 2 932 7 394 4 E MAIL INFO@OL SENIRWIN.COM
GEORGE BYRNE LOCAL DIVISION
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