That dusty souvenir spoon in the back of your drawer could soon be on show in a Byron Bay gallery.
Fingal Head artist Dawn Walker is calling on locals to lend their old Byron region keepsakes for her solo exhibition, The Souvenir Gaze, which opens at Lone Goat Gallery on Saturday, 28 November.
Souvenir tableware, pins, and spoons are all wanted for a special cabinet display. It will sit alongside Ms Walker’s small oil paintings of tourist memorabilia.
And it’s not just Byron Bay. Treasures from Mullumbimby, Bangalow, Brunswick Heads, and Lennox Head are welcome too.
“I wanted to bring the community’s stories into the exhibition,” Ms Walker said.
“These objects have lived in people’s homes, been worn on jackets or kept in drawers.”
“Bringing souvenirs of Byron back to Byron is an act of belonging that I want to celebrate with the Byron community.”
It all started with a post office.
Ms Walker’s studio sits on the site of Fingal Head’s former post office. For years, it sold everyday goods alongside the mail, including souvenirs of the Tweed Coast.
“I imagined these sitting on the shelf of the old Post Office for people to buy and treasure,” she said.
After finishing an Advanced Diploma of Fine Arts at Murwillumbah TAFE in 2011, where she won the Graduate Prize, Ms Walker became fascinated by how everyday objects hold on to memory and a sense of place.
“Bowling club badges, souvenir spoons and regional keepsakes can be markers of friendships, loved places, family holidays and travels,” she said.
Her paintings come in two sizes, a nod to the mass-produced souvenir. But each one is painted to capture what that single object means to its owner.
“The scale reflects the size of the objects and invites the viewer to take a closer look,” Ms Walker said.
Many souvenirs carry a tiny landscape of their own, such as a river or a town on the body of a swan. Ms Walker calls the result a painting within a painting.
She draws on the centuries-old tradition of still life, where artists turn ordinary objects into vessels for nostalgia and belonging.
“My work draws on that tradition through a distinctly Australian lens, exploring how a landscape becomes something we can hold, take home and keep,” she said.
Souvenirs are often written off as kitsch, but Ms Walker sees more in them.
“Designed to be displayed at home, pinned to a jacket or tucked away in a drawer, they were never intended as fine art,” she said.
“Yet they carry emotional weight.”
“A souvenir of Byron might preserve memories of a holiday, a friendship or a landscape that has changed.”
The Souvenir Gaze builds on Porcelain Places, her 2025 solo show at Tweed Regional Gallery.
Ms Walker was a finalist in the Royal Academy of Arts’ Summer Show in London last year and was shortlisted again this year. She is also a finalist in Tweed Regional Gallery’s Wollumbin Art Award 2026.
Solo shows are on the way at Orange Regional Gallery, the Northern Rivers Community Gallery in Ballina, and the New England Regional Art Museum (NERAM) in Armidale.
Locals keen to take part should email Lone Goat Gallery a photo of their souvenir by Wednesday, 25 November. There is no limit on how many items one person can put forward, and the gallery director will choose which pieces go on display.
- Email: lonegoatgallery@byron.nsw.gov.au
- Phone: 0437 171 062
- Where: Lone Goat Gallery, 28 Lawson Street, Byron Bay
- Opening: Saturday, 28 November, 4–6pm, all welcome
For those whose family treasures make it into the cabinet, Ms Walker hopes the display brings a sense of belonging.
“I hope they feel that their memories and family stories have a place there,” she said.
“Seeing an object in a gallery can encourage us to look again and consider why it has been kept.”
Advertising with North Coast Times is a cost effective and reliable way to reach locals who are interested and engaged. Find out more here.