By Ashleigh Fielding | posted on August 2, 2018
ALBANY’S historic York House on lower York Street has undergone a facelift and is now home to the city’s newest art exhibition space.
Blush Retail Gallery is the brainchild of local artist and businesswoman Angie Fryer-Smith and is an idea she has had whirling around her head for the past three years.
After the closure of her previous business in the same building, Ms Fryer- Smith said the building received eight months of extensive renovation before she reopened the doors last week.
Now, the lower level of York House has three sections, each with trapeze lighting, spotlighting, the capacity to hang artwork on the walls and sporting a fresh lick of paint.
Ms Fryer-Smith said her aim is to focus on Great Southern artists and showcase the “amazing local talent” popping up around every nook and cranny in town.
She said exhibitions in Blush Retail Gallery will rotate every four to five weeks and all artworks on display will be for sale.
“We wanted to keep the building in retail, to keep the street having a retail focus,” she said.
“I didn’t do much research before we opened because we just wanted to do our own thing, and keep the space free and simple.”
The gallery’s first exhibition is a collaboration between Ms Fryer-Smith and artists Cynthia Corr, Marjan Bakhtiarikish and Ron Baker, called La Dolce Vita.
The fitting Italian name ties in with Bakhtiarikish and Baker’s Mediterranean artistic influences, having both received professional training in Florence in their respective portrait and still life genres.
Ms Fryer-Smith is excited for the new gallery to become an art hot spot as well as an area for pop-up venues to setup shop.
“It would be fantastic for Albany if it became a food, wine and art mecca,” she said.
