DATE: Friday 17 October, 2025
TIME: 5pm
COST: Free, all welcome
Details
Immediately prior to the opening, meet the artists, Byrd (aka Dan Maginnity), Tom Buckland, Anna O’Neale and Ian Swift for an introduction to their works in Curious Birds. An informal Q&A session in The Space, where the bar will be open, will follow. Ask all your burning questions about their practices, how they source interesting materials and where- on-earth they find the inspiration for their eccentric bodies of work.
About the Artists
Anna O’Neale
Anna O’Neale is a ceramics/mixed media artist based in Goulburn. She has been practicing for 30 years. She is currently a ceramics teacher at Canberra Potters Society. Her work explores the intersection of human, animal and machine, creating anthropomorphic characters that challenge the boundaries between the organic and mechanical.
Ian Swift
Ian Swift has always been a maker. As a child he’d ask Santa for saws and hammers with claws. He’d collect bicycle parts from hard rubbish to assemble into hybrid bikes for pocket money. After meandering through many manual jobs, he found his people at art school (UNE Lismore) and he is represented by Lost Bear Gallery, Katoomba. Through his career, Swift’s primary motivation has been the environment and his many exhibitions and group shows have reflected this concern. He has been accepted twelve times in Bondi Sculpture by the Sea and awarded People’s Choice 1999 and Art Gallery of NSW prize 2002
Dan (Byrd) Maginnity
Byrd is a muralist and sculptor, addressing ideas of the local in place. He has produced work for Hindmarsh Group, Molonglo Group, ICON Water, Mirvac Westfield, Core Developments, RedBox Design Group, National Portrait Gallery, National Museum of Australia and the National Gallery of Australia. Byrd’s work explores themes of place, memory, politics, and pop culture, with a particular interest in how language and imagery shape our understanding of these concepts.
Tom Buckland
Tom Buckland is an artist who deals in a correspondence of worlds. By examining the present and the past, they construct portals to alternate futures yet to be explored. Working with recycled materials such as cardboard and salvaged electronics, Buckland creates playful, interactive and experimental installation, video and performance work that invites the audience to embark on a journey of discovery, transporting them to other dimensions across space and time provoking introspection about their own existence and the world they inhabit. In 2015, Buckland earned a BVA (Hons) from the ANU School of Art, supported by the prestigious John and Elizabeth Baker Honours scholarship and the Canberra Contemporary Art Space graduate award. Their work has graced galleries and collections both nationally and internationally, and in 2021, they were honored with the Sculpture by the Sea Clitheroe Foundation emerging artist mentorship. Currently, Buckland is based in Ngunawal/Canberra.