Art matters: New way to hunt for jewels of happiness

Art Ache founder Aimee Ralfini. Photo / Tanja McMillan

If you think the gallery scene is getting a bit dusty there's a bi-monthly event called Art Ache that aims to reinvigorate art fans who find the traditional routine of openings and exhibitions too formal.

It's also a chance for collectors to score bargains by a rising artist they may come to cherish.

The venue is the bar called Golden Dawn on the corner of Richmond and Ponsonby Rds. The artists, invited by Art Ache founder and curator Aimee Ralfini, are asked to bring in unsold and experimental works.

"All my art events are structured in the same way as music events. I want artists to be as popular as a band. I want that kind of fizz about art again," says Ralfini, who's constantly on the lookout for those "jewels of happiness you engage with on a daily basis".

She encourages artists to display their work in suitcases so the punters can rifle through the pictures in search of a treasure.

"Art Ache is about clearing out the studios and testing new ideas. It's a really comfortable environment to potentially meet new patrons. It's a different way to get art to the community," says Ralfini, who has run these nights since last October.

This bold Elam graduate was inspired by the fables of Montmartre in Paris.

Golden Dawn provides an appropriately bohemian atmosphere with its turn-of-the-century brick courtyard and outhouses. "The lights are dimmed so people who come and purchase an item have this memory. It's romantic, but I try and make it really low-key. There's far more work hanging than you'll find at a normal show and we'll often have a live painter."

Ralfini charges a modest commission, a fraction of what a dealer gallery would ask.

Growing up surrounded by a community of film-makers, musicians and painters has armed her with new methods to promote and sell artwork, but it's her playful enthusiasm that's most memorable. When she's not designing or wrangling artists you might find her in summer bobbing on the harbour in a nutshell pram fishing with her good friend, Misery (artist Tanja McMillan), although they do worry about the Te Atatu great white.

If you can't make it to Art Ache you can hear Ralfini on bFM at 9.30am each Thursday profiling an artist or exhibition on her regular slot, Who Arted?.

For those hoping to keep up with the Ralfini whirlwind, her Facebook blog, ELAM THE 90s, will help you plot the course of this fast-tacking impresario.

The next Art Ache runs from 5pm to 8pm at Golden Dawn on Thursday July 2, and it will feature a guest curator for the first time, Natalie Tozer, who runs the dealer-studio Lot 23 in Eden Terrace.