This was published 9 years ago
Gallery directors launch exhibition space within Sagra Restaurant
By Dylan Rainforth
The past 12 months have been another tough year for commercial galleries, with stalwarts John Buckley and Gabrielle Pizzi among those announcing they would close their doors.
Other galleries to close include Utopian Slumps and Edmund Pearce.
A visual feast: David Frazer's lino cut Together alone.
So it's nice to hear some good news. In what might be set to become a trend in a seemingly contracting art market, new Malvern space Sagra Gallery will be aligned with a business, in this case a restaurant.
Melissa Loughnan applied the same strategy to Slopes, the Collingwood non-profit (also now closed) that operated in a space provided by property developers Neometro ahead of apartments going up.
Sagra Gallery directors Phillip Doggett-Williams and Gerri Williams say the gallery will be in a mezzanine space flowing around an atrium within Sagra restaurant.
The gallery opens January 19 with a show by 18 established Australian artists, including Geoffrey Bartlett, Angela Cavalieri and David Frazer (work pictured).
"We are offering a complementary exhibition space to the 'white cube' model," Gerri Williams said.
"All our artists have an extensive exhibition history and are represented in major public, corporate and private collections all around Australia and internationally."