Pop-up gallery brings new life to CBD

Pop-up gallery curators Lyndall Hermitage and Chris Currie have been overwhelmed by the response from artists. Photo/Ben Fraser

The best of Rotorua art will be on show this summer in one of the central city's most well-known buildings.

A pop-up art gallery featuring about 70 works by 40-50 local artists opens on Saturday in the old Westpac building on the corner of Hinemoa and Tutanekai Sts.

The gallery of multimedia works is the latest in a series of initiatives to revitalise the Rotorua CBD and bring people back into the inner city.

Inner City Focus Group founder Mike Steiner said Rotorua artists had been invited to exhibit their work for six to eight weeks, taking advantage of the busier Christmas and summer season in town.

The gallery will be open from 10am to 4pm Tuesday to Sunday and will be manned by volunteers. All works will be for sale, with a percentage of the commission helping to fund the gallery.

Mr Steiner said he had long thought the building would make a fabulous art gallery.

If the pop-up idea were successful he hoped someone might look to continue it as a commercial enterprise, he said.

Supported by Westpac and Speedy Signs, the gallery is being curated by Chris Currie and Lyndall Hermitage.

Mr Currie said the gallery was fantastic for the arts, artists and the city.

He said the previously empty building was the perfect location and space for a gallery.

"It's better than having a lot of empty buildings."

The response from local artists had been overwhelming, said Ms Hermitage.

"We have more than we can put on the walls."

Inner City Focus Group/council liaison officer Brigitte Nelson said the pop-up gallery would work with The Arts Village, for example, by providing yarn, knitting needles and instructions for visitors to knit something for the "yarn bombing" of The Arts Village. Free postcards featuring other Rotorua art businesses and galleries will also be available, promoting art in the city.

Over the summer there will be children's activities and art out in the City Focus, she said.

"Artists are working together to create vibrancy and foot traffic in the city."

To volunteer to help man the gallery or run art activities, call Brigitte Nelson on (07) 351 7057.