OPENING NIGHT: 6-8PM FRIDAY 25 OCTOBER
Convergent brings together four distinct female voices whose work places the emotional, the personal, and the embodied at the forefront of their practices. Each artist delves into deeply intimate and emotional landscapes, their work reflecting both individual and collective identities. The artists are united by their use of contemporary art forms to explore and express their personal and emotional lives - a subject matter historically dismissed in favour of more rational or intellectual approaches. By focusing on their personal experiences, they invite us to see art not as something distant or detached, but as a way to connect. Isabell Heiss delves into the nuances of memory, loss, and identity, while Grace Fayrer explores the subtlety of boundaries through evocative sculptures. Emily-Sarah Boldeman's drawings blur the line between personal and collective emotions, and Shanti Des Fours activates spirituality in the face of global crises.
EMILY-SARAH BOLDEMAN BIO
Emily-Sarah Boldeman is an emerging artist based in Byron Bay. She graduated from Sydney College of the Arts with a Bachelor of Visual Arts (Honours) majoring in painting in 2001, before pursuing a career in graphic design. In 2023 she completed two years of a studio based art course at the Byron School of Art, exploring expanded drawing, painting, film and installation. Her work investigates the bounds of the body in space and seeks to traverse the chasm between self and other. In her large-scale automatic charcoal drawings, she relinquishes control and allows her subconscious to ‘dance’ the works in response to space, time, music and surface. Using marks and erasure spontaneously, sometimes repetitively, she creates a dialogue between emergence and disappearance.
Emily-Sarah has exhibited in Sydney and in Byron and was awarded the Tweed Regional Gallery Byron School of Art Graduate Award in 2023. She was shortlisted for the Wollumbin Art Award in 2022 and 2024.
www.emily-sarahboldeman.com @emilysarahboldeman
SHANTI DES FOURS BIO
Shanti Des Fours is an emerging artist based in the Northern Rivers (NSW). She holds a Bachelor’s degree in Art History from the University of Queensland and completed three years of study at the Byron School of Art in 2021. Shanti’s multidisciplinary practice—spanning photography, painting, video, printmaking, and installation—focuses on deeply personal and emotional themes, exploring identity, personal history, spirituality, and belief systems. Through her work, she reflects on the experiences that shape both individual and collective understandings of self.
In 2021, Shanti was awarded the inaugural Tweed Regional Gallery BSA Graduate Award. She has since been recognised through several awards and grants, including the 2023 CASE Prize, Create NSW Small Projects Grant, and the C.A.S.E. Mentorship Grant, as well as finalist placement in the Byron Arts Magazine BAM Art Prize and the Tweed Regional Gallery Wollumbin Art Prize. Shanti’s work is exhibited in galleries nationally.
www.shantidesfours.com @shanti.desfours.artist
GRACE FAYRER BIO
Grace Fayrer is an emerging artist based on Bundjalung Country in Northern NSW. Originally from England, she relocated to Australia in 2014. She holds a BA (Hons) in Fine Art Mixed Media from the University of Westminster, London, and completed two years of study at the Byron School of Art in 2022.
Grace’s practice explores the interplay between form and framework, focusing on the subtle boundaries between the physical and conceptual. Using the body as a recurring reference, she investigates themes of nostalgia, perception, and the thresholds between self and the external world. Her work spans video, sculpture, photography, and installation.
Grace has received several awards and grants, including the 2022 Tweed Regional Gallery BSA Graduate Award and the Create NSW Projects Grant. She was also a finalist for the 2022 Tweed Regional Gallery Wollumbin Art Award. Grace exhibits her work both nationally and internationally.
www.gracefayrer.com @gracefayrer
ISABELL HEISS BIO
Isabell Heiss is an emerging artist, originally from Germany, who moved to Australia in 2011. She currently lives and works on Bundjalung Country, in Northern NSW. Heiss holds a Diploma in Art and Design from the Lothar von Faber Schule (2006) and completed three years of study at the Byron School of Art in 2023. Her interdisciplinary practice — primarily expressed through video, sculpture, and installation — engages with personal questions of identity, memory and lineage. Through reflections on loss and emotional legacy, Isabell questions heritage and the sense of belonging and attempts to connect the inner to the collective.
Her work has been recognised through awards and publications, including winning the 2023 Galah BSA Graduate Award, and being a finalist in the 2023 Ingenuity Sculpture Prize, the 2024 Wollumbin Art Award at Tweed Regional Gallery, and the 2024 Art Edit Magazine Self-represented Artist Award. Isabell has been exhibited nationally and internationally.