Byron Bay artist Jordy Sosnowski’s Solitary Union art exhibition at Fig Tree Galleries in April

A lawyer turned artist will host her first exhibition at Yeppoon next month – after her collection came very close to being washed about in the Northern NSW floods.

Vanessa Jarrett

2 min read

March 16, 2022 - 4:25PM

Byron Shire

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Byron Bay artist Jordy Sosnowski’s work will hang on the walls of the Fig Tree Galleries in Yeppoon next month after it luckily survived the wrath of the Northern New South Wales floods in late February

For months Ms Sosnowski had been working on her collection of artworks for her first solo exhibition to be held at Yeppoon’s new reimagined art gallery.

The collection came close to getting washed away in the record-breaking floods.

“It was raining the night before, my husband was digging a trench outside,” Ms Sosnowski, who lives in Mullumbimby, said.

She moved all of her artworks to on top of the dining room table.

“They would have gotten destroyed if we didn’t move them … if a painting gets wet, the canvas gets warped … Lucky they were floating on our table instead,” she said.

“It was months of work and hours and hours of painting.

“It would have been awful to see them destroyed in a matter of seconds.”

The water gushed in about 5am the next day and there was up to 50cm of water across their house.

“Just enough to destroy the skirting … We have concrete floors so we could push most of the water out,” she said.

The artworks are what Ms Sosnowski described as “abstract landscapes”.

“One day I just began painting … the more I worked on them I realised each one was different,” she said.

“Most people see them as icebergs … floating crystals. Some people might see them as a comment on climate change, some people see them as a big blob.

“None of them are right or wrong and that’s what I love about art, it’s ambiguous.”

Art was something that was in Ms Sosnowski’s blood, with both of her parents artists.

Ms Sosnowski joked she rebelled against this lifestyle and became a lawyer.

But after becoming a mum and taking time off work, she found herself painting to de-stress.

“Painting brings me so much joy and a way to unwind,” she said.

A regular visitor to Yeppoon with her husband and their two young children, Ms Sosnowski, whose mother-in-law Nene Davies owns Yeppoon book store Hannah Jones and coffee shop Chapter, and brother-in-law Rhys owns Mexican restaurant Citrus Club, said it just made sense to have an exhibition there.

Mayor Andy Ireland will officially open the exhibition on April 14.

“I feel very supported by Yeppoon and Livingstone Shire Council, it’s such a great arts scene up there now,” Ms Sosnowski said.

“With the new Rockhampton Museum of Art open now and Nene’s writers festival, it’s just a really awesome creative hub.

“I’m really excited, mixed with a bit of nervousness

“I hope lots of people find the art interesting and it resonates with them.”