Julie Byers Verified listing

My art practice is grounded in a fascination of how materials carry memory and emotion. I collect found papers, photographs, handwritten notes, and fragments of text — pieces that have already lived other lives. Each element holds traces of human presence, and through cutting, arranging, and layering, I bring them into new relationships with one another.

I’m interested in the stories that emerge from these combinations — how meaning can shift when fragments are recontextualised, and how beauty can be found in the worn, torn, and imperfect. My process is intuitive and reflective, often guided by feeling rather than plan. The act of collage becomes a way of thinking and remembering, a means of exploring connection and transformation. Themes of social justice are often present in my work, a nod to my own history and parallel career in international development.

Through my work, I hope to create a sense of recognition — something familiar yet reimagined — that invites viewers to pause, reflect, and perhaps recall their own layered histories. Each collage is, in its own way, an attempt to piece together what it means to be human: what we hold onto, what we let go, what we keep hidden in this mad journey called life.

I grew up in a record store and everyday I was flicking through the most amazing artwork courtesy of those covers that enveloped the black discs hidden inside.  My visual language reflects this history and definitely has a graphic design aesthetic. My art tells a story and I am constantly inspired by the connections between people, place, memory and our inner world. I’m drawn to materials that carry traces of lived experience — old letters, photographs, handwritten notes, and printed pages — and the stories they hold. Through collage, I explore how these fragments can be reassembled to express emotion, resilience, and the shared humanity that binds us. The themes of love, loss, and belonging often surface in my work, reflecting both personal experience and insights from my life in international development across the Pacific.

In 2024 I completed a solo residency at Kolaj Institute in New Orleans. My focus was to prepare work to honor the 20th Anniversary of Hurricane Katrina.  I was in New Orleans in 2005 as a tourist and the work documents my journey of escape from the disaster and the broader theme of climate justice in a world facing climate change that affects us all.