Words Melinda Antal
Ladies and gentlemen, allow me to introduce one of Hobart’s most incredible emerging artists, Rhiannon Bryce who is bringing her style of ‘street femme’ the attention it much deserves through her incredible and monumental mixed-media portraiture work. ‘Rhi’ as her friends call her, is a serious mover and shaker when it comes to making, sharing and celebrating art. This incredible young woman held two art exhibitions earlier this year at the youth centre’s Substation Art Gallery in January followed by a grand opening launch exhibition of the new Burrow Gallery at the Royal Tasmanian Botanical Gardens in February. To put a cherry on top of all that, Rhi then got busy with designing a very special front cover for this Platform edition of ‘Wallflower’ taking Issue 7 to next level awesome!
Fresh out of Hobart College and into UTAS Art School, completing a Bachelor of Fine Arts with a major in Visual Communications, Rhi’s love for art began during her years at the fun and creative Steiner school, Tarremah. She said her time at Tarremah was key to developing her creative flow as even the Maths and English subjects invited students to draw and illustrate answers adding that, “you weren’t ‘being marked’ but instead treated like an individual with teachers focusing on students unique attributes, making you feel really good about it”.
After talking to Rhi for even just a brief moment, it was obvious to see how such a lovely soul came to find her sense of uninhibited expression to flow so freely. Her entire family are all creatives and this lucky young lady grew up with paper and pen in hand, drawing all the time! Rhi learned from a young age that art helps her to forget about troubles adding, “Making art is a good way to let out emotions, and it’s Art Therapy!”
One of the beautiful things about the way Rhi responds to her creativity is in the ‘allowing’ and going with the flow of what inspires her at the time. She says her art and style changes all the time saying, “The art I make is a reflection of what inspires me in the moment”. Pinterest is one of her biggest ‘go-to’ sources of inspiration where she can access heaps of different styles to explore collage photography, and painting. She likes to use found images, blending them with paint and mediums like china graph, pastels, oils and mostly acrylic paints. Her most recent experiments include digital art and ink sprays in a street/graffiti style and further exploring typography.
But it wasn’t always easy for Rhi to share her amazing art world! She says, “When I was younger I was SO shy, I couldn’t even go into a shop or talk to the person that worked there”. Over the years, she became a lot more confident having no way to escape the limelight that her special artistic powers pulled her into and the constant public appearances helped develop her self confidence in a big way. She says, “Confidence is a huge thing! It’s like building up a muscle, the more you do, the better you get at it!”
One thing’s for sure, Rhi is destined to share her creativity with the world and her big dream is to find a career that keeps nourishing that. She says, “Whether it’s teaching or tattooing, or going into advertising, as long as it’s creative!” Whatever the case, Rhi says “I’ll always have art in my life no matter what and I’m excited to see where it takes me!”
Checkout Rhiannon’s Facebook Page at https://www.facebook.com/Art-Journal-1440565526246414/