Artists display resilience as exhibitions go virtual

Galleries and exhibition spaces may be closed but it hasn’t stopped artists finding ways to get their work into the public eye.

At Orange’s Corner Store Gallery on Summer Street, the exhibitions are now being hung ‘outwards’ making the most of their large window frontage.

“At the moment we've got a lot of our artworks set up in the windows because, we have really big window at the front of the shop so if people actually want to see something in the flesh they can go and quite literally do some window shopping,” said Corner Store Gallery Owner Madeline Young.

Since opening in 2014, The Corner Store Gallery has been a strong supporter of local artists and makers. While all the exhibitions planned over the next few months have had to be cancelled, Madi is curating an ever-changing online exhibition of her regular contributing artists.

“What I’m doing for the rest of the year is having a continually rolling-over selection of artworks from my old faithfuls that I've worked with over the years, and we will do a kind of  special online exhibition every now and then,” she said.

“We've had an online store for years and so I've always got my exhibitions for sale online. We probably will miss a few sales, but we were already set up for this anyway. I have been overhauling it and rejigging it for the last couple of day to try and make it a bit more user friendly.”

Madi is also uploading ‘virtual’ gallery tours to her social media pages, giving people an up-close look at pieces available for sale.

“I’ve just filmed the on the iPhone taking people close to the artworks at different angles so they get to see the texture and the scale of the work,” she said.

“It seems to be working because I posted a video of some ceramics the other day and I sold them within half an hour, which was pretty good!”

Although the lockdown measures are having a significant impact on artists — including Madi, who had a solo exhibition in Canberra cancelled — she said that in many ways those in the creative fields are better prepared to deal with uncertain times.

“We are pretty resilient, because it is such a touch and go industry; everyone is used to working a million jobs and not having a ton of money and you have got to adapt all the time and change your ways of doing stuff. So, we'll be fine, we’ll definitely be here at the end of it.”