A backyard laundry-turned-gallery has had its fifth exhibition of tiny artworks, supporting emerging Australian National University art students and local artists within the Canberra community.
The Gallery of Small Things (GOST) has just finished its annual exhibit, partnering with the ANU’s Emerging Artist Support Scheme to promote budding artists.
Gallery curator and co-owner Anne Masters said that despite being located rather close to home, the experience the gallery provided emerging artists was worth it.
“This is their first show, and we wanted to kick start their career by challenging them to create brand new work, in a very short period of time,” she said.
“Unlike larger, busier galleries, we are shaping the industry by providing feedback to help educate our artists as to why things did and didn’t work in their exhibition, and how they can overcome this in the future.
“As patrons we also covered most expenses of the exhibit, such as the catering, invitations for the launch event and advertisements.”
Co-owner Adam Masters said the idea of turning a portion of the backyard into a tiny walk-in gallery has created a unique and flexible space.
“This was originally the wet area of the backyard studio, with a bathroom, laundry and toilet,” he said.
“Anne had the dream of opening her own gallery, and once we realised we didn’t need that laundry space after renovations, we gutted it and turned it into a tiny gallery.
“A few years later we were at the ANU graduate exhibition, and decided to contribute our gallery space for selected graduating artists from the university.”
This year’s artists are Boya Yu and Thomas Wood, whose work features ceramic, steel and painting.
Located in the quiet suburb of Watson the gallery is in its fifth year of operation.
In January it featured in Qantas’ Traveller Insider magazine as one of the top five things to do in Canberra, alongside places like the National Gallery of Australia.
The gallery is open for ten months of the year, seven days a week from 11 to 4.
Artist’s work on display is available for purchase.
The next exhibit will be the annual group show of 25 artists in September.
This year’s theme is ‘the sound of painting’.