Covering 15km and six suburbs on an e-bike, James Norman discovers artist-run spaces, crowds spilling on to pavements and a garbage bin of ice-cold beer.
Lai runs an accessible free calendar populated with details of dozens of upcoming art openings, and, like a sort of Bill Cunningham for Melbourne, has become one of the city’s most active art chroniclers on Instagram.
Of the 50 ceramic items on display, the most striking are Celtic-inspired insignia.
Over a craft beer, the gallery owner, Oscar O’Shea, also an artist and film-maker, explains that MOM features monthly solo or group shows and gladly welcomes expressions of interest or walk-ins.
A 15-minute bike ride from Thornbury takes me to the northern end of Nicholson Street, East Brunswick, to the quaint deco shopfront of OK Violet gallery. Housed in a former postwar lending library, the space has been lovingly renovated by its owner, Kirsten Perry, who greets me with bubbly in handmade ceramic mugs.
The gallery has been open for a year; her aim is to build community by providing a space especially for artists who haven’t exhibited for a while and want to return to their practice. The opening is for the South Australia artist Debbie Pryor with her show Shadows as Witness.
The opening is for the Melbourne street artists Abyss and Louis Moore and titled A DOG EAT DOG WORLD: cartoonish urban landscapes and creatures on canvas.
The show features the Melbourne artist Greg Mount drive-in theatres, lost characters sitting on suitcases in desolate car parks of liquor stores and gas stations, all rendered in vivid and cartoonish acrylics on panel.