New art gallery opens in Port Macquarie

Port Macquarie’s new art gallery, Luminance, had its genesis in the 1980s when a good-looking warehouse was available to rent next to Trumper Park in Sydney.

Opening exhibition at Luminance Gallery. This World and Another. Abstract Paintings by Malcolm Harding.

I was 20-something and thought I’d open an art gallery in a warehouse because I wanted to show my partner Malcolm Harding’s work.

I also wanted to exhibit work by several other artists, but most of all, I wanted to host Sunday lunches for family and friends around a long trestle table in a room full of art.

A few years later, another rental space became available off Crown Street, in Surry Hills. It was owned by the artist Ken Unsworth. This space could also accommodate large-scale work as well as the Sunday lunch crowd, and for those reasons I thought it was perfect.

I was a bullet-proof young fella with neither a business plan nor a trestle table but those things didn’t matter as much as art’s romance.

It surprises me that I followed through with neither version of that dream. I must have realised, deep down, that running an art gallery was not the lark I imagined.

Forty years later, after moving from Sydney to Blackheath and then to Port Macquarie post-lockdown, I was asked by a Blue Mountains friend: how long has this new gallery been in the pipeline?

Long story, I said. I’ll write a short version for this website and send you the link.

Opening an art gallery is a leap of faith, no matter how long its been in the pipeline. But with 40 years experience in mainstream and community media, having also worked for the Human Rights Commission and at the University of Sydney, I see that it’s all connected because art communicates as much as a good story. It deepens our understanding of each other and the places we inhabit, it illuminates our histories and our futures.

Luminance Art Gallery in Port Macquarie is a cultural endeavour whose pre-launch activities have been shaped by the reality of signing a commercial lease in Port Macquarie’s CBD and getting that space fit for purpose.

There have been introductions to make and conversations to have, with Local Aboriginal Land Councils and Arts Mid North Coast, with regional art galleries and local businesses, and with some of the many artists who live on the Mid North Coast.

These conversations continue.

I hope they broaden and deepen as the gallery gains support and builds its audience, connecting with residents and visitors, students and teachers, local businesses, art lovers and buyers.

Luminance Art Gallery provides artists with additional opportunities to show and sell their work. It’s focus is on art that is imaginative, beautiful and engaging.

However, I’m not getting a trestle table for the gallery and there’ll be no long lunches on-site.

I see that as a good thing: it means art is no longer a justification but the thing itself.

Luminance Art Gallery’s first exhibition, This World and Another, opens on 6 March 2025 and runs through to 3 April 2025.

Address: 2/26 Clarence Street Port Macquarie, in the Garrison Building opposite Glasshouse. Open Wednesday to Saturday and by appointment.

Visit us online at www.luminancegallery.com.au