Brisbane 8 - 11 May 2025
AFFORDABLE ART FAIR
Sarah Birtles Art + Advice is delighted to open 2025 with the highly-anticipated annual release from Fiona Smith. Following her immensely successful sold out exhibitions in February 2023 and 2024, this internationally-collected artist returns with a new collection of avian characters reposing in richly patterned interiors titled Stranger than Paradise.
“The collection came from a conversation I had in Paris a few weeks ago,” Fiona shared. “I was there to look at décor for future paintings and caught up with Olivier – a constant friend since we first met, working at the Pasadena hotel and restaurant in Church Point when I was just 19.
Olivier tells me how some Indian ring-necked parrots escaped from captivity and bred in the City of Light. Now, up to 20,000 of the emerald birds are sharing the parks with astonished humans.
It got me thinking about adaptability and how we can make anywhere our home, even when we seem out of place. What can be commonplace in one location, becomes exotic in another. In my paintings, all the birds are visitors who have settled in to share our spaces.”
SARAH
BIRTLES
For over 10 years, Sarah worked in commercial and public galleries, including the MCA and Penrith Regional Gallery. In that time, it became clear to her that there was a missing link between art and art collectors.
She founded SARAH BIRTLES Art + Advice with the aim of working alongside artists and collectors to navigate the art buying process together to the benefit of all involved.
Based in the Blue Mountains, Sarah loves talking about art, discovering new artists, and introducing people to work they genuinely connect with.
At Sarah Birtles Art + Advice we aim to take the stress out of curating your art collection – no matter whether you’re a first time buyer or established collector.
When we started out, we wanted to create an alternative to buying art through intimidating city galleries or endlessly scrolling options online. We bring together personal service, great advice and a proven eye for picking the most exciting contemporary Australian artists on the emerging and established market.
PHILLIP
EDWARDS
The rolling hills, deep valleys and tiered waterfalls of Victoria’s West Gippsland region are where Phillip Edwards first developed his affinity with the natural environment. Now based within the vibrant Daylesford arts community, Phillip’s connection to the great outdoors is ever present in his dynamic landscape work.
“When I hike in back country, I’m totally present in a contemplative way,” he explains. “For me, my paintings capture that invisible energy behind all things… A mystical encounter with beauty.”
Having dedicated the past 30 years to his art practice, Phillip has held multiple solo shows and participated in many group exhibitions. Applying paint in multiple layers with deliberate brushstrokes and colour flows, his expressive large-scale paintings map out natural forms and take viewers on a visceral journey into the great Australian outdoors.
As a 2018 finalist of the prestigious Wynne Prize, hosted by the Art Gallery of New South Wales, Phillip was awarded the Trustees Watercolour Prize. He has also been a finalist in the Calleen Art Award, Flow Contemporary Watercolour Prize and the Lester Prize for portraiture. In addition to painting, Phillip creates sculptures from timber, steel and found objects, his deep connection to nature apparent in each piece.
Phillip Edwards - Glory & Quietened Mind
Phillip Edwards - Buffalo's Afternoon Mood
Phillip Edwards - Harmony in Season
Phillip Edwards - Sunrays Over Grassland
Phillip Edwards - Mungo Blue Salt Bush
Phillip Edwards - Morning's Quiet Dialogue
Phillip Edwards - Colour Burst in the Dry
Phillip Edwards - Hindmarsh Woodland
Fiona Smith - Abu Said, The Lucky One, White Stork
Fiona Smith - Rock the Kasbah, Flamingo
Fiona Smith - Garden of Yves, Scarlet Ibis
Fiona Smith - Secret Garden, Magpies
Fiona Smith - Odalisque, Blue Cheeked Bee Eater
Fiona Smith - Bohemian Rhapsody, Eurasian Eagle Owl
Fiona Smith - Baba of the Skoura Oasis, North African Ostrich
Fiona Smith - Crane Tango
Fiona Smith - Wardrobe Magpie
Fiona Smith - Powder Room Emerald Dove
Fiona Smith - Floordrobe Magpie
Fiona Smith - Recital on a Tole Chandelier
Fiona Smith - Blue Flash Common Kingfisher
Fiona Smith - The Parrots That Ate Paris, Ring Necked Parakeets
Fiona Smith - The Secret, Emerald Doves
Fiona Smith - An Angel Like You, Galahs
Fiona Smith - Standing, Starry Eyed, Magnolia Magpie
Fiona Smith - Wild Thing, King Parrot on Tiffany Lamp
Fiona Smith - Amore, Galahs
Fiona Smith - A Chance That She Cares, Grey Crowned Crane
Fiona Smith - A Stranger in Paradise, Roseate Spoonbill
Fiona Smith - All Lost in a Wonderland, Flamingo
Fiona Smith - Puffer Daddy
Fiona Smith - Fancy Footwork | Roseate Spoonbill
Fiona Smith - The Watcher | Blue Heron
Fiona Smith - What To Wear? Kookaburra
Jan Spencer
Jan Spencer is a Sydney-based artist inspired by her cycling travels in Australia and abroad. Her intimate collage panels beam with intense colour, simplified form and cheerful energy.
During her travels Jan fills her handmade diaries with notes and sketches. Upon returning to her Rozelle studio she uses these initial sketches to render collages using luscious thick Caran d’Ache oil crayons on coloured papers. The final compositions are pasted on art board and sealed with varnish so the works require no framing or glass.
Jan has exhibited for over 30 years. Her work features in the Artbank Collection, The State Bank Collection and corporate and private collections in Australia, France, Japan, the USA and the UK.
Jan Spencer - Xanthorrhoea After Prescribed Burn, Beardmore Road Towards Mt Frankland, Western Australia, Caldyanup Country, Murda Biddi Trail
Jan Spencer - Rock Faces, Cassia & Acacia, Monumea Gap Range, Bogan Gate to Forbes, NSW, Wiradjuri Country
Jan Spencer - Harvested Acreage, Dutton Mail Road Eudunda to Truro Lavender Cycle Trail, South Australia
James Lyle
Based in Bathurst, in the Central West of New South Wales, James is passionate about painting and its unique ability to convey the wonder of colour like no other medium. His bold alla prima method of application distils with immediacy what is most vital and potent.
James studied painting at the Nepean Arts and Design Centre in Kingswood and later graduated from the painting program at the College of Fine Arts in Sydney, having received scholarships from both the Australian Decorative Fine Arts Society and Ars Musica Australis.
Often described as a ‘painter’s painter’, James sold his graduation show piece to renowned Welsh street-artist Charles Uzzell Edwards (aka Pure Evil).
Having painted and exhibited regularly throughout the Central West, Hawkesbury and Sydney, James has enjoyed teaching his experience of painting for more than a decade now.
James Lyle - Mid Morning Sun, Evans Plains Creek
James Lyle - Sun on Wallis Lake, Booti Booti
James Lyle - Spring Morning Down by the River, Macquarie/Wambuul Bathurst NSW
James Lyle - Late Afternoon Sun at Point Falls
James Lyle - Quiet Winter Morning at Cathie Creek
Darren White
Darren White is a contemporary painter, capturing the Australian landscape through his easy-going lens of nostalgia and emotion. His paintings are collected by those seeking the chilled out vibes of a road-trip holiday.
Working purely from memory, rather than from photos or life, Darren allows the extraneous details of the landscape to fall away focusing his attention on the story of a place and moment. The landscapes are simplified, partly abstracted, balanced and calming.
Darren primarily uses acrylics and oil sticks on canvas and works from his home studio in Peregian Beach, Queensland.
Often described as a ‘painter’s painter’, James sold his graduation show piece to renowned Welsh street-artist Charles Uzzell Edwards (aka Pure Evil).
Having painted and exhibited regularly throughout the Central West, Hawkesbury and Sydney, James has enjoyed teaching his experience of painting for more than a decade now.
Darren White - Venison
Darren White - Full Cup
Darren White - Keyhole
Darren White - Scrub
Darren White - Laguna Bay
Darren White - Above a Low I & II
Darren White - Widgee 1 & 2
Darren White - Silver Strand
Zoe Sernack
Zoe Sernack's imagined landscapes reflect the forms of nature above and below the surface, weaving together observation, memory and sensory experiences of place.
She holds a Bachelor of Fine Arts from The National Art School and has exhibited for over 25 years. She has been a finalist in the Fisher's Ghost Award, Hornsby Art Award, Gosford Art Award, Into the Light Art Award and the Lethbridge 2000 Art Award.
A keen observer, she is often found sketching plants in Sydney gardens and parks. Working on timber boards, she uses a delicate colour palette, carving and textural mark-making to capture the rhythms of the Australian bush seen with the eyes and felt with the heart.
“I am constantly fascinated by the intelligence of the natural world, its networks below the earth’s surface and the flourishing compositions we see above the ground. I’m grateful that I can be inspired by the Australian landscape and its prolific botanicals.” ZS
