Basq House showcases an eclectically rich and diverse collection of artworks and sculptural pieces on its interior walls, table tops and shelves. This presentation of bold, fluid artistic creativity forms a distinct component of the hotel’s iconic visual signature.  

The Basq art collection presents many contemporary and traditional works predominantly made by local artists, who draw from a wide spectrum of cultural influences and artistic practice.

Akin to a gallery visit, this collection offers a unique and highly sensorial experience for hotel guests, who are invited to enjoy a contemplative wander around the hotel to discover each work of art in a leisurely way. Each room - including the Living Room, Reception and Library, as well as corridors and guest rooms - contain high quality original artworks.

Basq House’s art collection has been created through a curatorial collaboration between the hotel’s co-owner Matt Walsh, Gallerist Paula Bannan and Interior Designer Leo Terrando; with local artworks primarily sourced from Byron Bay’s Pack Gallery Studio and Colecta Rara in Bangalow.

Celebrated for its rich, diverse artistic culture and heritage, the Northern Rivers region is home to many highly collectable international and local artists and sculptors, which Basq House is proud to collect and display.

These include established practitioners: Leah Thiessen, Christine Willcocks, Zimmi, Julie Corbet, Damian Bisogni, Sabrina Simoni and Brenda Page, as well as a selection of new and emerging artists: Josephine Ehlers, Jemima Patch-Taylor and Robin Saunders. 

Julie Corbet is a Byron Bay artist who creates expressive and often moody works that hum with energy, colour and playfulness.

Her paintings are inspired by the aerial views that survey the rich undulating forms in Australian landscapes. Working on canvas flat on the ground, Julie mixes a liquid flow of paint, colliding and coalescing the colours and forms, and then building up layers upon layers to create works that are ephemeral and highly abstracted. 

Image caption: Untitled by Julie Corbet @corbetjulie

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On the sidewall of The Living Room, adjacent to the fireplace, hangs Josephine Ehler's large, abstracted landscape, Yellow One. It’s one of her larger paintings, and fuses the exterior Australian landscape with an interior landscape. 

A multidisciplinary artist based in the Northern Rivers, Josephine’s interest lies in the urban landscape and the poetic beauty found in lines, shapes and shadows. Growing up in Denmark, Josephine was highly influenced by her father and grandparents’ interest in architecture and design. Her art practice explores spatial and structural design elements, liminal spaces, reflections, pops of colour, larger shapes and line work.

Image caption: Yellow One by Josephine Ehlers @_jokokojo  

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Hanging above the fireplace is a large abstract and highly layered artwork, Grace by Leah Thiessen. It depicts the view from her studio rendered in different mediums: charcoal, acrylic and oils. 

Recently voted as one of the top most collectible 100 Australian artists (top100artists.com). Leah Thiessen creates abstract, highly layered images in direct response to the bush, beaches and mangroves that surround her home and studio on the edge of the Terranora Broadwater in Northern NSW. Exploring the living energy of nature, Thiessen’s work draws upon the biodiversity of the bush and mangroves that line the water’s edge and reflect the raw energy and liveliness of a space and place.

Image caption: Grace by Leah Thiessen @leahthiessen_

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Botanical 2 by Leah Thiessen is a collage work on paper and rendered with ink, paint and charcoal. Similarly, it is an abstract landscape and references the view from her Tweed studio.

Image caption: Botanical 2 by Leah Thiessen

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Behind the hotel’s reception desk you’ll find Damian Bisogni’s abstract painting Eye to Eye. A Byron Bay artist with European heritage, Damian infuses his art with his rich cultural lineage. 

His work serves as a mosaic of history, personal anecdotes, melodies, cinematic narratives, contemporary culture, and the mundane beauty of everyday life. Damien’s work is a delicate dance between abstraction and semi-representation with whimsical narratives; a contemplation of communication and the spaces between people, set in solid fields of colour and off-whites.

Image caption: Eye to Eye by Damian Bisogni  @dbisart

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Another local artist, Amelia Reed is based in Murwillumbah. Referencing interiors and architectural features, the composition of her paintings are pared down to a minimal set of shapes and form, with a minimal palette and with an interplay of light and shadow. 

Image caption: Slow Summer by Amelia Reid @amelia.a.reid

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Brenda Page is a Melbourne glass artist who also creates artworks from glass and screen printing. Influenced by the Victorian era ‘memento mori’ aesthetics, she explores themes of mourning and loss. 

Sourcing imagery from vintage photographs from the turn of the 20th century, as she has in Twins, Brenda has directly screen printed onto wood, and then painted onto the print. 

Image caption: Twins by Brenda Page @brenda_page1  

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Local fibre artist Zimmi has created a highly tactile and intricate woven sculptural installation depicting flowers blowing in the wind. 

Sited on the north-west corner of the Living Room, Raceme is made from woven Bangalow palm flower fibres. The light from the adjacent window impacts the installation throughout the day, creating shadow-play, negative spaces and movement.

Image caption: Raceme by Zimmi @weaving_nature

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Karen Bothmann’s ceramic sculptures are hand-built, one-off and unique pieces. Originally from Germany, Karen is a local Murwillumbah-based artist who is fascinated by the Australian landscape. Her organic sculptures reference the colours and forms of the landscape in the area in which she lives.

Image caption: Ceramic sculptures by Karen Bothmann @karenbothmann

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An Italian artist who now lives in the Byron region, Sabrina Simone creates portraits with distinctive graphic and static qualities. The artist takes a still photo from a television image and then initially paints the image in graphite dust and then layers it further with colour. 

Her works depict chosen moments in time.

Image caption: The Lie by Sabrina Simoni @sabrinasimoniart  

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The Basq House pool bathroom is directly adjacent to The Library and it contains another lyrical abstract painting by Damian Bisogni, entitled First Kiss. Again, Damian’s work is simple in composition, quite graphic in execution, layered with paint and portrays semi-representational imagery about people interacting.

Image caption: First Kiss by Damian Bisogni @dbisart 

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Located on the Library’s east wall is a large triptych print of a tropical Brazilian landscape scene by renowned Brazilian artist Beatriz Ferrari. With exuberant beauty, this large mural depicts layers of palms, ferns and foliage in a muted, earthy colour palette. It draws the viewer into an undefined vanishing point in the distance, which suggests a mysterious, dream-like, other-worldly realm.

Image caption: Triptych Mural Bia Ferrari, Brazil @biaaferrari

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On the wall just across from the Basq bookcase are two of Christine Willcock’s water colours, Written in Stone and An Elegiac Landscape. The well-known Australian printmaker lives on the escarpment at the back of Koonyum Range. Here, on her property she looks up at a massive rock wall, and the artist herself speaks about ‘her obsession with rocks’. Christine’s paintings can often appear as if they depict large rocks, however often the rocks are the size of her hand.

Image caption: Written in Stone by Christine Willcocks and An Elegiac Landscape by Christine Willcocks @chriswillcocks 

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Just above the Library fireplace is another Sabrina Simoni work entitled The Danish Girl. In this work the artist began by taking a photo from a television program before dipping her brush into graphite dust, after which she layered the work by creating scratchy marks with stencilling underneath.

Image caption: Woman’s Portrait by Sabrina Simoni @sabrinasimoniart

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On the ground floor lift lobby wall is a landscape painting Magic (stain blue) by a young, prizewinning, emerging artist, Jemima Patch-Taylor. 

Growing up locally at Pearces Creek, Jemima has a finely honed ability to capture local landscapes with a muted colour palette and an ‘other-worldly’ feeling. The creation of her work is driven not just by an intent to capture the visible, tangible landscape but also the spiritual and visceral connection to it. Impressionist and deeply feminine, her paintings are powerful documents of an unspoken attachment to the world around us.  

Image caption: Magic (stain blue) Jemima Patch-Taylor @jemimapatchtaylor  

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On the Basq House guest floor corridors are a number of striking multi-media works by Ross Booker, who is deeply influenced by the ephemeral qualities and topographical surface of wave forms of remote Australian landscapes.

Brought up in the Northern Rivers region, and now Brisbane resident, Ross travels to remote western Queensland gorges to create abstracted au plein air landscapes. Painting the artworks on site, he then brings them back to his studio, after which he photographs, adds additional layers and paints on perspex, which gives the work three-dimensional qualities.

Image caption: Channel Country by Ross Booker rossbooker.com 

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Local artist Robin Saunders is printmaker, whose monoprints on Japanese paper, Gold Offering #1 and Gold Offering #2, references the rocks in the creek near her home in Limpinwood, near Wollumbin Mount Warning. To create these works, Robin walked the creek beds near her home, photographing and drawing ephemeral watermarks she found on the dry surface of river rocks there. 

Image caption: Gold Offering #1 and Gold Offering #2 Robin Saunders @robinsaundersart 

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Two of Julie Corbet’s uniquely rich, colourful and highly abstracted paintings are above the bed in each guest room. Typically her colour palettes are either predominantly cool or warm colour palettes, and occasionally she will mix both warm and cool together. 

Image caption: Numerous works by Julie Corbet @corbetjulie

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Adorning the shelves of the Host Desk and the Library is a collection of organic shaped whimsical vases and ceramic statues of different shapes and sizes from Byron’s Bodhi Living in the Arts & Industry Estate. 

Image caption: Bodhi Living @bodhi.living

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Just above the Host Desk are three striped hand woven pendants originally from Ghana and sourced by Tigmi Trading in Byron’s Arts & Industry Estate. Each pendant is made with Veta Vera grass using a traditional basket weaving technique from Bolgatanga. The delicate open weave stripes allow the light to spread in patterns across the wall and ceiling. The reeds are twisted by hand and small batches are coloured using vegetable dyes in cauldrons. Each striped pendant takes two days to weave.

Image caption: Pendant lights @tigmitrading

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After you’ve viewed the Basq House art collection, forage for your own artisan and vintage take-home treasures.

Make a plan to bring home some of Byron’s best fashion and homewares. Read our Guide to the best of Byron shopping.