Join the first live event of Let’s Talk About Art, Baby! - a 3 part series of live panel discussion events brought to you by Northern Rivers Creative and Studio Tropico, which will be recorded and released as video and audio podcasts.

In this episode augmenting the current Self exhibition open at Grafton Regional Gallery, Creative Producer Ingrid Wilson will lead a discussion joined by exhibiting artists Joe Swepson and Stephen Garrett - inspiring audiences through an insight into their creative practice, with a focus on all things gender.

Following the discussion, stay for the afternoon (3-5pm) for the public opening event for the exhibition featuring the work of local artists including Joe Swepson, Stephen Garrett, Xanthe Dobbie, Laith McGregor, Fabian Pertzel and Antoinette O’Brien. Explore the gallery through to the adjoining sculpture garden where you can indulge in drinks and nibbles while continuing the discussion of all things art.

This exhibition aims to participate in important and ongoing global conversations through varied gestures, expressions, and understandings of gender. Using the lens of their own experiences, each of the featured artists are exhibiting work expanding upon or challenging existing understandings of gender from social, political or cultural perspectives.

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Panelists -

Ingrid Wilson / Curator / Facilitator / NRC Creative Producer - When Ingrid joined Arts Northern Rivers in 2019 she launched the Northern Rivers Creative directory platform and has since been managing the platform as Creative Producer, introducing an artistic program delivered across the region.

Joe Swepson / Artist - Ze, zir and they are Joe’s preferred pronouns as they denote neither male nor female. Joe Swepson’s practice is based on explorations of the body, identity, and the self. Focussing on the body as a commodity, a site of familiarity and political struggle, Joe Swepson explores notions of gender as being based on a western system of binary classification.

Stephen Garratt / Artist - Stephen's artwork harnesses the historic decadence in which power and privilege exists. He asserts a flagrant disregard for that history―creating complex new readings through rewriting the visual code and exposing an alternate narrative to site and place―breaking open the pictorial space for alternate allegorical meaning and possibility.

See you at Grafton Regional Gallery - a safe, inclusive, and affirming space.