The latest exhibition on showcased in Re:Box, the Island’s smallest art gallery on Lind Street in Ryde, takes its inspiration, in part, from the box itself.
Artist Julie Gayle Balliu has entitled her new original work Out of Order, referring not only to the changing role of the phone box but also to the diversions, interruptions and unexpected shifts that shape everyday life.
Through colour, layering and fragments of text, the work reflects the ways we negotiate both obstacles and opportunities, finding new routes and different directions along the way.
Julie explained:
“These two panels explore contrasting experiences of restriction and openness through the language of signs, movement and public space,
“One panel reflects interruption, congestion and frustration, inspired by roadworks, diversions and the realities of island travel. The other celebrates freedom and possibility through tourist stickers, destinations and memories of journeys.”
Julie is an artist based on the Isle of Wight and currently studying Fine Art with the Open College of the Arts. Originally trained as a graphic artist in London in the late 1980s, she spent many years working in design, marketing and project management before returning fully to fine art. Working primarily in watercolour, alongside mixed media and printmaking, her work explores houses, interiors and environments shaped by human presence. Inspired by the traces people leave behind, she exhibits in the UK and internationally and remains committed to projects that connect people to place and shared experience.
Zoë Barker, Re:Box co-founder.
“While the phone box is no longer a place where you can make a call, as Julie brilliantly illustrates, it remains a place of communication,” said
“Julie’s work really gets the best out of this streetside exhibition space.”
Julie’s Re:Box images are available as greeting cards and can be purchased at DEPARTMENT, 29-30 Cross Street, Ryde.
