Address: Sidespace Gallery

Opening Event :
Thursday 20 March 2025, 6:00pm – 8:00pm

Exhibition Dates :
Thursday 20 – Monday 31 March 2025
10:00am – 3:00pm daily

An exhibition of works created as a result of the Struth Ruth! Group Residency at Melaleuca near Bathurst Harbour.  

Presented by the Struth Ruth! Art Group (consisting of graduates and non-graduate artists).

Featured Artists include : Helen Jessup, Trudy Humphries, Jane Broad, Karen Vincent, Janne Mooney, Helen Spaulding, and Susan Kenny.

The exhibition was inspired by a trip to the South West of Tasmania. The paintings are a showcase and a unique representation of our wonderful island.  

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Helen Jessup

Helen Jessup reinvented herself as a painter following retirement from her working life as a TAFE teacher, social worker and academic.  Robin Mary Calvert was her primary art teacher until she commenced a Bachelor of Fine Arts in 2013 completing in 2018. Helen joined Struth Ruth! in 2019. She has participated in many group, solo and competition exhibitions since retirement, including a recent residency at Derby. An exhibition displaying works generated from this residency opened in December 2023 and ran over the summer.

Helen paints and shows with several groups regularly, including weekly with local “Struth Ruth!”, Sunny Coasters residential bi annual En Plein Air group based in Orford, Images of Tasmania, an annual group or Art School alumni, and POGO, a  Hobart Based En Plein Air community. She is a member of Huon Art Exhibition Group, Cygnet, showing at the Lovett Gallery.

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Jane Broad

Jane Broad completed her Bachelor of Fine Arts as a mature age student whilst working as a social worker. She has worked extensively with disadvantaged migrants both in tertiary education and in ESL contexts, and these experiences have informed her work, although she does also enjoy painting landscape and abstract

Jane has had three Solo Exhibitions, including one on Refugee experiences at the Moonah Arts Centre and participated in three group exhibitions. She was also a participant in the ‘Transformation’ mural exhibition.

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Karen Vincent

Karen Vincent has been painting since her first watercolour class with Tasmanian art teacher Terry Gough in the ’90s. Travels around Australia, Europe and in the United States, her second home, have involved mostly Plein Aire excursions with fellow artists and numerous exhibitions featuring natural landscapes.

Since returning to live in Tasmania, on the beautiful South Arm Peninsula, she has been increasingly working with other mediums and particularly enjoys pastel and acrylics. Seldom found in her art studio, Karen prefers the company of fellow artists working together to try to ‘capture’ the unique physical and spiritual qualities of Tasmania in the wild.

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Janne Mooney

Janne Mooney was originally a dental therapist but completed her B Fin Arts as a mature age student (with 3 children) majoring in ceramics. She has been an art teacher however this has been expressed through teaching ESL students at Rosny College and special needs students at St Francis.

Janne decided to learn to paint as a vehicle to work collectively with others as she found ceramics an isolating experience. She also joined Robin Mary Calvert’s group, becoming a founding member of the current group after several years with Robin Mary. Janne has participated in solo and group shows as well as curated many exhibitions for her students over the years  

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Helen Spaulding

Life circumstances, ie born in the 1950’s, female, married young, three children required Helen to express her artistic leanings as a hairdresser running a hairdressing salon, and the requirements of homemaking. On retirement she also commenced classes with Robin Mary Calvert and was a founding member in what has become ”Struth Ruth!”

Helen participated in several annual group exhibitions whilst part of Robin Mary Calvert’s group and has had works hung with the Struth Ruth group at local venues including Meadowbank / Coal valley Winery, Amaze Richmond and the commission at Molly’s Run, Cidery at Richmond.

She has also completed several commissioned works and has sold at the Rotary Art Exhibition at Wrest Point.

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Susan Kenny

Susan Kenny’s interest in art began at school and continued in a very protracted fashion for many years. Marriage, family and moving around the state made it difficult to complete her Fine Arts Degree.

She attended many Adult Ed art classes, painting weekends, and joined a painting group. Her journey certainly was rekindled over the past ten years when she joined Struth Ruth! She paints what pleases her, animals, landscapes, portraits, still life and occasionally abstract. Her painting also includes portraits and some commissioned landscapes, working indoors mostly from photographs she has taken, given our Tasmanian weather. She has been inspired recently to give Plein Air and watercolour a go. Her paintings are well received, participating in a Mural for Mollies Run Cidery, exhibiting at Amaze and Coal Valley Vineyard at Richmond. She paints mostly in Acrylic but as her journey continues she is keen to paint in oils too. That journey never ends.

Exhibition Dates :
Friday 7 – Sunday 16 February 2025
Friday – Sunday 10am – 5pm
Monday – Thursday 10am – 4pm

Opening Event :
5:30pm Thursday 6 February 2025

Photographer, Tom Polacheck’s exhibition highlights Madagascar’s rich maritime heritage, where wooden boats blend influences from Southeast Asian outrigger canoes, Arab dhows, and Western schooners along the island’s 3,000 km coastline.

A photo and video exhibition that celebrates the 1000s of traditional wooden boats that still prevail along Madagascar’s 3000km coast line. Madagascar is the last large coastal region where open-ocean, wooden sailing vessels still predominate. These vessels are critical for sustaining the daily lives of the people living there. They are central for providing food and transport in a region where roads and terrestrial infrastructure hardly exist. While off the coast of Africa, Madagascar retains strong links with the Pacific and SE Asia as its original inhabitants sailed there around 1200 years ago. Since then, it has been at the cross roads of the Atlantic-Indian Ocean trade routes. It has absorbed, combined and maintained the traditions and knowledge from (1) Southeast Asian/Pacific outrigger canoes (2) Arab dhows and (3) the western gaff rigged schooners.In November 2024, five Australian’s undertook a journey of discovery to Madagascar, (including a 2 week cruise in a traditional schooner) to learn about and document its rich maritime history. Presented here is a visual display of some of what they learned and discovered about this diverse range of beautiful vessels and the people that build and sail them.

Opening Event :
Friday 14 March 2025, 5:15pm – 7:15pm

Exhibition Dates :
Thursday 13 – Sunday 16 March 2025
10:00am – 6:00pm daily

A walk through half a century of Hobartian Monte John Latham‘s abstract expressionism and ‘worldscape’ paintings.

Monte John Latham’s Walk in the Worldscape exhibition features a selection of striking and vibrant works of oil and acrylic on canvas that explore the interplays between humanity, nature, the metaphysical, mind, journey, and locale. Dreamlike landscapes flow out of and into intricate abstractions expressing serene harmony, dynamism and love through ethereal and evocative colours. 

Largely unknown, Latham is an elusive local underground artist whose prolific journey spans decades of steady and passionate creation, each piece serving as a testament to his unwavering passion for capturing the essence of life and the world around us. Born in the middle of the twentieth century, Latham began painting as a boy. His work blossomed with surrealism, defiance and inquiry during the counterculture currents of the sixties and seventies. 

This exhibition showcases Latham’s most striking works, thoughtfully selected to illustrate the breadth of his artistic journey. It is a rare opportunity to experience the creative evolution of an artist whose vision remains timeless and deeply resonant.

Originals and numbered replica prints will be available for purchase.

Opening Event :
Friday 21 February 2025, 5:30pm – 7:30pm

Exhibition Dates :
Wednesday 19 February – Sunday 2 March 2025
Monday – Thursday 9:30am – 3:30pm
Friday 9:30am – 5:30pm
Saturday & Sunday 8:00am – 3:00pm 

A photographic study of the Tasmanian wilderness, by Tim Faircloth.

Viewers will be taken on a black and white journey celebrating and exploring some of the State’s favourite places. 

Tim Faircloth is a classically trained film photographer using a large format wooden field camera, vintage lenses and black and white film, processed in a home darkroom. 

Driven by a deep passion for photography as an art form, images are presented as a single edition artwork, emphasising the rarity and the significant time and effort invested in capturing it.

Opening Event :
Thursday 9 January 2025, 5:00pm – 7:00pm
Exhibition to be Opened by Caroline Davies Choi

Exhibition Dates :
Thursday 9 – Sunday 19 January 2025
10:00am – 4:00pm daily

An exhibition by Rachel Bremner, exploring the expressive possibilities of contemporary mosaic using an improvised process highlighting texture, reflection, the effects of changing light on the surface.

“From early childhood leading up to my life as a visual artist, I trained and performed as a professional violinist. I continue to be fascinated by the similarities and differences between the two forms of artistic expression.

I had never conceived of music as an art form that needed words to provide background or convey what I mean to express.

Expressing myself in words has never come easily to me, I can rarely find the right ones for my purpose, music was always the perfect medium for my intense  sense of privacy. In music performance I could present my inner world to the audience, all my thoughts, reactions, emotions without having to describe the background story.

When I started to put my mosaic work out into the world, in contrast to music-making, I struggled with the obligation in the art world to use words when presenting to an audience. I felt a growing conflict with the wordless immediacy with which I wanted to engage and how much words can interfere with that engagement.

I presented the past exhibition as  an intense offering to the audience to pause, observe each work and examine emotional reactions in their own terms, with no titles, no accompanying prompts.

This Second Cycle is intended as an expression of where my life, imagination and emotional being have moved since my previous exhibition.”
– Rachel Bremner

Exhibition Dates :
Wednesday 22 January – Monday 3 February 2025
Monday – Friday 9:30am – 5:30pm
Saturday & Sunday 10:00am – 5:00pm
*Closing at 2:00pm on Final Day : Monday 3 February 2025

An exploration of Tasmania’s dolerite and granite, by Anna Brooks

“Tasmania’s geology has fascinated me since I first saw the towering dolerite pillars on kunanyi/Mt Wellington 20 years ago.  Their straight columns and dark vertical chasms are truly inspiring.  Tasmania has the largest exposure of dolerite in the world, and roughly a third of our state is dolerite.  These rock columns therefore are a strong part of my sense of Tasmania, and have come to feel ‘home’ to me.  Likewise, the granite of the east coast and Flinders island, with its rounded sea-worn curves and orange lichen, give these places much of their character.

As a rock climber, I have had a very personal association with rock.  Climbing involves constantly feeling the rock surface to find protrusions and cracks that might supply a finger or toe hold.  The rock can become the most intimate of friends.  In this exhibition I have tried to capture the varied shapes of rock and stone and also the closer details of texture and pattern.  I have included ink drawings, acrylic paintings and photographic works.”
– Anna Brooks

Associate Membership of the Salamanca Arts Centre is by application and is open to any individual who supports the vision, aims and activities of Salamanca Arts Centre. As an Associate Member of Salamanca Arts Centre you will be supporting one of Tasmania’s foremost cultural organisations.

Associate Membership is an annual membership, spanning 1 January – 31 December each year.

Associate Membership is required to be eligible to exhibit in SAC’s Access Gallery Program (includes Sidespace Gallery, Top Gallery and Lightbox). Exhibiting artists must have valid Associate Membership at the time of their exhibition; Associate Membership is not required when applying to exhibit.

Find out more about the current SAC Associate Membership Benefits, Discounts and Offers for 2025 below.
We will be increasing Benefits this year to ensure representation across all art forms – so keep an eye out for exciting developments.

Exhibition Dates :
Wednesday 18 December 2024 – Monday 6 January 2025
10:00am – 6:00pm daily
CLOSED Christmas Day
Closing Early on Final Day : Monday 6 January 2026 10:00am – 3:00pm

A high-quality exhibition covering a wide range of approaches and disciplines and showcasing the artworks of up to 45 Tasmanian artists, each with an individual display space.

Images of Tasmania (IOT) is an annual exhibition of selected artists with links to the Tasmanian School of Creative Art in its various incarnations. It is the brainchild of Jan Peacock and Betsy Gamble, who saw the potential of a collaborative show using the Long Gallery and Sidespace Gallery over the Christmas – New Year period.  Hobart is buzzing with visitors at this time.  The first IOT exhibition was held in 1998, as the initiative of artists and art educators who trained together in the late 1950s.  

The integral aim of the show is to display coherent bodies of work rather than single pieces hence the inclusion of mini exhibitions where audiences can get a sense of individual styles.

Some artists have been exhibiting in IOT for many years, but the exhibition is annually infused with ‘new blood’ drawn mainly from art school graduates. The exhibition is entirely self-funded, and all costs and tasks of mounting and running the exhibition are shared by participating artists.

Opening Event :
Wednesday 27 November 2024, 5:00pm – 7:00pm

Exhibition Dates :
Tuesday 26 November – Monday 16 December 2024
Tuesday – Sunday 10:00am – 5:00pm
Mondays CLOSED

Land Bridge by Peta Cross consists of multiple small en plein air oil paintings on wood. Painted quickly with minimal reworking they are largely sea scapes. The paintings are part of a sequence completed over several years mapping the coasts of Northern Tasmania (where the artist was born) and Southern Victoria (where the artist lives). 

The exhibition Land Bridge is an enquiry into The Bassian Plain or isthmus that is now submerged between Southern Victoria, (Cape Otway to Wilsons Promontory) and Northern Tasmania  (Mussleroe Bay to Cape Grim). The exhibition also includes, oil sketches from Flinders Island.

The Bassian Plain or isthmus served as a land bridge for thousands of years until the last ice age, 12,000 years ago. Many species of plants, birds, marsupials, insects and of course Palawa moved freely through the extraordinary biosphere it can only have been. The Palawa oral history of this event is notably one of the oldest if not the oldest narratives in history. Recorded in the 1830’s the narrative describes the positioning of the star Canopus near the South Pole.

Researchers were able to measure the sea floor of the Bass Straight and the ability to cover the isthmus on foot. They calculated the positioning of the star by descriptions of the Palawa and discovered that both conditions occurred at least 12,000 years ago.

The “ghost land plain” reveals itself through the many tiny islands of the Bass Straight. So many histories are now secrets of the deep and as geological time reveals, our histories may be submerged in years to come or another land bridge form.

” I have been fascinated by this sense of the land yearning for itself for so many years. I have spent most of my life living on both sides of the straight. Born and raised on the North West coast now living in Narrm ,Melbourne.

As a painter I am interested in sketches or unfinished works as much as finished works. This exhibition is an effort to draw or simply “map”, light, air, sea, coast, it is more of a work in progress, the mapping is not complete and the idea around the landbridge may be developed into a larger scale exhibition in the future.”
– Peta Cross

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Opening Dates :
Wednesday 30 October – Sunday 10 November 2024
10:00am – 4:00pm daily

Opening Event :
Thursday 31 October 2024, 6:00pm – 8:00pm

Terre by Audrey Durbridge is a collection of artworks articulating the textures, tonality and resonance of coastline.

Terre is a collection of artworks articulating the textures, tonality, and resonance of coastline. Made primarily from materials gathered and processed within their place of origin, Bellerive, and Barrett’s Bay as these are my studio sites and are the constant informants of my creative impetus.

Earth pigments, inks and stains infuse the cloth and paper with colour that creates a rich surface for embellishment. Collage, appliqué and stitch then provide the unexpected placements and connections. Using coastal detritus and salvaged metal gives form to the patterns and rhythms of place.

This work is situated between the unexpected and the intentional. The combining of various materials is the process through which the artwork forms, with mixed media becoming its own content. Terre is the language that represents my relationship to place.

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