Born 1967 to a farming family in Hawkes Bay. Moved to Wellington in 1985 to attend Wellington Design School. Was taught printmaking by John Drawbridge, and Stanley Palmer, continuing to work during school breaks as Stanley’s “clean hands”.

Graduated with a degree in textile design 1989. She then worked for the Wellington City Art Gallery, and Te papa part time while beginning to exhibit prints and paintings at galleries in Wellington, Dunedin and Auckland, complete small film projects and study towards a degree in art history.

In 1994 she received an arts council grant to set up a printmaking studio, and tutored printmaking at Whiterea Polytechnic, and Inverlochy House.

In 1997, following a year spent in Auckland, continuing to exhibit and work at Stanley Palmer’s studio Bryant gained a post graduate diploma in secondary art education. 1998 to 2002 was spent working at Weta Workshop in Wellington, as a costume props and armour maker, with some part-time experimental drawing, and life drawing tutoring at the School of Architecture at Victoria University. In 2002 Bryant spent a year as a costume design tutor in Nelson, following that year with time spent in Taranaki working on armour for the film The Last Samurai. Bryant now divides her time between her artwork, and spending time with her husband, Jonathan Brough and her son, Jack.

In my work I attempt to explore ideas of belonging, or not belonging, a sense of need for community, and a want for a personal space within that community, in which to live the intimate parts of a life, and play out the dynamics of different types of relationships.

It interested me for a long time that if a person was asked to draw a quick floor plan or map of the house or streets that they lived in, then the rooms or streets which held the most emotional importance for that person were often drawn the largest. Having a key to a space also gives the owner a sense of belonging, but in another way, can be used to lock out or exclude.

The new motorway through the centre of Wellington, carves right through the area in which I spent formative years. I shared flats, and worked and had studios and friends in this part of Te Aro, and there were also many examples of irreplaceable architecture in tight community settings. I will often use information in my work which is not obvious at first glance, hidden or obscured, or needing to be viewed at very close range. This is often how I felt about information concerning the town planning around Te Aro. Some of my work is abut this area, but it is as much about having a space to live, within a place that I care about, and hoping to have some feeling of protection and inclusion there.