KNOCKOUT ART GALLERIES IN REGIONAL HUBS

WHEN IT OPENS IN MAY, the 60.5 million HOTA Gallery will be Australia’s largest public gallery outside a capital city, spanning six levels and more than 2000 square metres of exhibition space. It will be home to the 32 million City Collection, composed of more than 4400 artworks including those by Australian art royalty like Ben Quilty and Tracey Moffatt and one of the largest collections of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander art in regional Australia. Among its inaugural exhibitions will be an exclusive world premiere of contemporary masterpieces from New York featuring iconic works by Jean-Michel Basquiat, Andy Warhol, Keith Haring and Jeff Koons.

And if the fact that HOTA Gallery is opening in Queensland’s sun-soaked Gold Coast surprises you, maybe it shouldn’t. “I won’t tolerate anyone ever saying the Gold Coast is a cultural desert because it is simply not true and it has simply never been true,” says Criena Gehrke, CEO of HOTA, Home of the Arts, an ambitious cultural precinct ensconced in tropical parklands just a stone’s throw from Surfers Paradise. HOTA is already home to two theatres and arthouse cinemas, an outdoor stage, swimming lake, Sunday farmers’ market and more. The gallery – a bold architect-designed building with a colourful but sympathetic aesthetic inspired by a painting, The Rainforest by William Robinson, held in the gallery’s collection – will be the jewel in the crown.

Of course, the DNA of the city is built on entrepreneurship, business and tourism, says Gehrke. It is unapologetically Australia’s preferred holiday destination and playground. But she also speaks of the rich stream of creativity that has bubbled away here for decades – not least in the precinct HOTA has evolved from, latterly The Arts Centre Gold Coast, which was founded in 1986 with its strong performing and visual arts cultures (including the world-class City Collection that has been built up in that time). Then there’s the thriving food scene and distinct personalities of the city’s various villages, from Burleigh Heads to Coolangatta to Southport. All of this creative ambition will now find its expression in the HOTA Gallery – the opening of which will prove a transformational moment for the city and how it is perceived as well as a catalyst for its continued cultural evolution.

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