We spoke with Gallery Director, Eloise Hastings from day01.
The gallery is located in Darlinghurst, can you elaborate on its location and why you chose to open here?
day01. is located at 189 Crown Street, Darlinghurst, a central location on the cusp of Surry Hills, in Sydney. Opening a space with a modest footprint was appealing, so as to be able to offer an intimate viewing experience to share a small body of compelling work.
Ian Moore, the award winning architect’s clever design elements transformed the tiny space to feel much larger. Our hidden pivot wall has not only become iconic, offering immense intrigue, but also creates opportunity for two extra full width x height sized viewing walls with unique sightline possibilities.
The architecturally bespoke 20sqm gallery enables optimal conditions for mini exhibitions, highly beneficial for enticing international artists to exhibit in Sydney for the first time and an inviting gallery for significant art collectors and curators to visit.
Recently recognised with an architectural award it was deemed that, “every decision has been made to carefully maximize functionality and efficiency whilst also maintaining the aesthetic power of space”.
What are some career highlights, or exhibition highlights in the gallery to date?
Every exhibition is a highlight, as they each evolve from considered collaboration and deep engagement with hand-picked artists. All highlights in my opinion, whether an emerging or a globally recognised artist, or an artist hidden from view but respected within their own Aboriginal arts community.
Bringing artists together in unlikely pairings or contexts is a very desirable part of the gallery program. Artists that would otherwise not cross paths. The recent show ‘Skipping Borders’, with celebrated Melbourne artist, Tomislav Nikolic and NYC based artist Justin Adian was particularly satisfying, we discovered a dynamic conversation and an opportunity to expose the work of each artist in a foreign market.
What was your first exhibition, and why?
The gallery opened in April 2022 with an intimate show titled, ‘Seizing the insignificance of the everyday’, featuring much adored Brisbane artist Robert MacPherson (1937–2021) and Matlok Griffiths from Melbourne. The show comprised a series of early 80’s personal favourite pieces and a significant pre-owned work alongside some recent work by Matlok.
A presentation of two intriguing Australian artists making highly relevant works that remind us all that one person’s discarded detritus or mundane everyday thinking can offer meaning and infinite conceptual possibilities for the act of painting, and a timely trigger (post-Covid mentality) to creative minds that you don’t have to look much further than what is at hand to start generating work.
For each exhibition I feel after thorough research it is important to make work that is often hard to see, such as Robert MacPherson’s, more accessible as they are certainly worthy of celebration.
