Bay Gallery Home has reopened!

Bay Gallery Home is very excited to welcome people back into our gallery now the lockdown has finally ended for non-essential retail.

This lockdown was harder than previous ones as we barely recovered from the Summer one before being thrust into the next two so it’s with great relief we can reopen giving you the opportunity to see the beautiful paintings we have imported during lockdown in the flesh.

We’ve also used the time we’ve been shut to make more velvet cushions and pouffes. You are going to love them! They feel and look amazing.

Come and feast your eyes on artwork by the oldest continuous race in the world. Indigenous communities across the world were particularly under threat from Covid but as the communities closed, very early on in the pandemic, across Australia they remained safe and in good health. The art centres are cautiously reopening so we’ll have more work arriving over the next couple of months.

Wishing you all the best and look forward to seeing old and new faces in our Tetbury, Cotswolds gallery.

'My Country' wallpapers bring Spring to your home

In the UK Spring has arrived with lambs tripping across daffodiled fields. To bring some of that beautiful outside spirit in your home our Joycie Yellow is the perfect choice. Joycie Yellow is often used to brighten bathrooms and kitchens. The many colours artist Joycie Pitjara Morton used in the original painting have translated splendidly onto the wallpaper. The oranges and greens pop depending on the light and angle its viewed at so there’s endless choices of fabric colours for blinds or other soft furnishings you can pair it with - including our own fabric collection. Or you can opt for one of our other ‘My Country’ wallpapers which are equally as endearing with their depictions of sacred outback Australian land.

Our wallpapers suit many residential and commercial projects and have been used across the world in English period homes, French chateus , and contemporary houses who’ve opted for minimalism but needing a pop of colour and design with soul.

What’s your favourite?

Stock is held in Australia so if you’re an Australian customer please be assured your ordered will be sent from there. If you contact us and you don’t get a reply please check your Spam. We always reply immediately.

Lockdown 0.3 - here we go again!

Our Ruth Red Goanna Dreaming velvet cushion on one of the amazing sofas you can find at Treacle George in Tetbury, the Cotswolds.

Sadly we have had to close our doors again but we’re still trading online and by appointment during this winter lockdown. If you follow the gallery safety protocols you can pick up any purchases safely or we can send them to you via Royal Mail, Parcelforce or DHL.

Please keep an eye for new paintings on the website and Instagram, you’ll also be able to see new developments in the ‘My Country’ collection. Our made in Britain new cushion collection is online and we’ve uploaded photos of our made to order ottomans. Fabric is available by the metre so if you want to practice your upholstery or sewing skills we have beautiful fabrics in the gallery you can’t get anywhere else.

Don’t forget Tetbury’s small independent shops during this lockdown. We’re all working so hard to bring you things of beauty you can’t get anywhere else.

We watched with horror as the queue snaked down the road from the post office as people returned lockdown purchases to Amazon. Please shop locally and/or from independents across the UK.

The Surrey Splendour featured our business in its latest Home Edit

Melita Dusty Pink wallpaper in background is from an original artwork is by Melita Pitjara Morton

Ruth Pink cotton velvet cushions are from an original artwork by Ruth Nungarraryi Spencer

The Surrey Splendour invited us to be part of its Home Edit after “scouring the county [and a bit beyond] to find some exciting home inspired businesses to ensure that any renovation project exudes quality and design.” We are thrilled our ‘My Country' Aboriginal interiors collection was selected - it is so lovely to have the work of the Artists we represent embraced by so many in the UK, which in turn helps support the Communities and the Central Desert art centres.

Click on the link to to read more and explore the other businesses selected for the Edit.

https://www.thesurreysplendour.co.uk/home/2020/10/8/at-home-edit-stylishly-surrey

Home interiors inspiration

Cotswolds clients bought “his” and “her” paintings for their new extension bringing warm hues to the grey wall creating a warm, cosy space for the winter months.

Since we’ve reopened Bay Gallery Home has been blessed with many visitors who are looking to buy from our Art and ‘My Country’ interiors collection. Simply put many of them were bored of looking at blank walls and wanted something to stimulate them visually while spending extended periods at home. Our Aboriginal art & interiors are steeped in sacred stories and 60, 000 years of history. Clients comment it gives them a sense of peace, grounding them in an ancient world where people lived with their Country rather than dominating it. While some (or most) of us are feeling lost and bewildered separated from family and friends we can immerse ourselves in this incredible culture and seek solace in its beauty and spirituality.

Our gallery’s products suite maximalist room schemes as well as catering to those who like the simplicity of minimalism. You can opt for a carnival of pattern and colour or stump for simple lines using traditional colours depicting desert forms. Over the next few weeks we will be sharing mood board ideas. We also have some exciting new fabrics to share with you and are busy making for a House & Garden shoot.

When buying from Bay Gallery Home you are supporting the Central Desert Aboriginal communities we represent as well as British designers and manufacturers.

For more information about the featured artists please contact alexandra@baygalleryhome.com

Cotswold Life magazine featured Bay Gallery Home in 'Bringing the Buzz back to Tetbury'

Thank you to Tracy Spiers and Cotswold Life magazine for selecting Bay Gallery Home to appear in your Cotswold Life feature ‘Bringing the Buzz back to Tetbury. We have had quite a few visitors who read the article seeking us out afterwards.

Read the full article here:
https://www.cotswoldlife.co.uk/out-about/places/visit-tetbury-best-places-in-town-1-6786749

Here is an excerpt from the article about Bay Gallery Home:

Alexandra opened what is the UK’s only dedicated Aboriginal gallery five years ago and in collaboration with British manufacturers, has created a vibrant international award-winning interior design range called ‘My Country’, using original Aboriginal painting designs.

“It is the only Australian Aboriginal interior collection in the world and it has now made The List - House and Garden bringing Aboriginal interiors to world class interior designers. People are drawn to the colours and patterns and when I explain each piece’s creation myth, it takes them to another place.”

Each painting is multi-layered in terms of its meaning, structure, symbolic and spiritual significance. Within the canvas lies secret business that only the artist and their families are privy to. But what the eye sees is a feast of colour, celebrating and representing a culture and way of life in a land few of us get to see. The relationship and trust Alexandra has built with the people she represents, has enabled her to showcase something rare and special.

“This building is medieval, but what is fascinating is that where we are dates back to Neolithic where people 10,000 years ago would have been painting at Market Place, Tetbury with ochres at the same time as the Aboriginals.

“I think that the town was already impacted by Brexit and I think people need to understand that. As people return, I hope they realise just how many independent businesses we have, each selling so many beautiful things. I do hope the sense of fear lifts and people will come into our shops again,” she says.

Brands To Love: A Stunning Home Collection by Aboriginal Artists by Patricia Martin

Patricia Martin is an American author, speaker, and analyst who tracks changes in the culture who recently featured Bay Gallery Home in her blog: Brands To Love.

Posted by  Patricia Martin 

http://patricia-martin.com

Good art is redemptive; just looking at it lights the lamp from within. When a brand meets that standard, it deserves a good long look.

Founded in 2008, Bay Gallery Home was started by former journalist, Alexandra O’Brien. She emigrated from the UK to Australia when she was four, before returning to England 20 years later. The gallery is nestled in the English Cotswolds in Gloucestershire and represents a range of artists from the communities of Australia’s Northern Territory. Featuring a breadth of works by emerging talent, as well as established artists, prices reflect that range from just over $200 to $5,000 US.

The award-winning My Country home collection, provides revenue streams for indigenous artists while expanding global awareness for their art. And oh, the art translated onto these wallpapers and fabrics is alive with flora and wild animals. Bold, beautiful abstracts drawn from Aboriginal mythology and culture explode with colors and patterns from the Australian outback, a place that stubbornly sits on my bucket list. Ms. O’Brien’s passionate approach is living proof that a visionary brand can deliver meaningful value to artists and their communities and everyone prospers. Sublime!

Take a look at Bay Gallery Home’s Australian Aboriginal art, ceramics, wallpaper here: baygalleryhome.com

Artist’s work featured in photo: Daisy Kemarre Turner

Photo Credit: Adam Carter Photography

'Stay Alert' - how to buy from Bay Gallery Home in the new lock down phase

Our Bush Onion cotton velvet floor cushion sits on our Water Dreaming wool rug.

Bay Gallery Home is hoping everyone is well and stays safe as the UK emerges from lockdown. As a gallery we’re in a grey area as to opening but each day I’m working in the gallery space (with no commute) so our products continue to be sent out via the post office and DHL. Everything is online so you can peruse the paintings, giftware, accessories and our award winning ‘My Country’ interiors collection then pick your choice up from the gallery (contactless) or it can be sent out.

We’ve noticed across Twitter and Instagram there’s been lots of lock down birthdays so you can choose something soulful and unique from Bay Gallery Home for your loved ones and friends.

Please get in touch via email or call Alexandra on 07776 157 066 with any queries.

EC Collective - Australian Distributors

EC Collective, part of Elliott Clarke, have added Bay Gallery Home to its stable of beautiful artisanal fabric & wallpaper houses from around the world.

Australian’s can now source our ‘My Country’: design with origin Aboriginal Interiors collection through the Elliot Clarke showrooms in Sydney, Melbourne, Brisbane and their agents in Perth and Adelaide.

Thank you for all those who have patiently waited for Bay Gallery Home to get ‘My Country’ to Australia. We have made it. Our Central Desert artists benefit from the sale of our collection via royalties thereby supporting their career and their communities. We thank them for the amazing opportunity to translate their work from paintings onto the fabrics and wallpapers you can now purchase through the EC Collective.

For more information you can reach Elliott Clarke on:

www.elliottclarke.com.au email: info@elliottclarke.com.au or call: +61 (3) 9510 0722

Covid-19 update

Bay Gallery Home wants to reassure you that over the coming months, while the world deals with this dreadful pandemic that our gallery will stay open until the authorities tell us otherwise. Online orders will be fulfilled while the post office remains open. DHL has assured us that they will maintaining their delivery service for the foreseeable future. If circumstances change will let you know via the Blog, Instagram and Twitter feeds.

Sadly one our art centres has been forced to close so there will be no new works from them until the danger of infection has passed. We will post images of our latest shipment from them on our Instagram and Twitter accounts @baygalleryhome .

We hope that you all stay in good health and wish those affected a speedy recovery. If you have elderly relatives in the Gloucestershire area who need anything from the shops and you can’t get to your relatives please get in touch and we will try to help.

Wishing you all the best

Bay Gallery Home

Rubbish Art - beware buying fake, appropriated or sweatshop Aboriginal art

Athena Nangala Granites, Yanjirlpirri or Napaljarri-Warnu Jukurrpa, (Star or Seven Sisters Dreaming)

Bay Gallery Home often gets approached with people wanting to us to sell Aboriginal paintings they’ve bought. Sadly time and time again we have to inform them that the paintings, despite having [questionable] certificates of authenticity, are from disreputable sources. Most likely they are fake or they have been acquired under sweatshop conditions. Aboriginal artists are particularly vulnerable if they are not working within the protection of an Aboriginal owned art centre.

Bay Gallery Home won’t deal on the secondary market as we only work with art centres ensuring the artists are renumerated for the paintings we sell. We’ve been wanting to write this blog for sometime as it’s evident questionable works are making it into the UK market. There are several reputable dealers in the UK so if you want an authentic work please approach any of us so we can ensure you have a work you can be confident is genuine, you can resell and that you are assured the artist will be compensated for their work.

To help you work out how to buy good Aboriginal art not “rubbish art”:

1. Look up address of gallery and thoroughly go through their website. Many of the questionable paintings or “rubbish art” we are offered are for sale with only a PO Box as the address. Sometimes the sellers name alerts me that something is up. In the 15 years I’ve been dealing Aboriginal art I’ve never come across a gallery operating under the name or the dealers name appearing on the certificates I’ve been shown. Look carefully at the photo of the artist on the certificate. Does the artist look happy? I’ve been shown certificates where the artist clearly looks distressed, others where the artists head doesn’t even appear in the picture. Sometimes the background itself is distressing - a dirty bit of carpet they’ve been sitting on for hours painting an artwork surrounded by shopping trolleys out the back of a building. These should all ring alarm bells.

2. You may be offered paintings by carpetbaggers. Carpetbaggers are people who approach artists and offer them very little money for the paintings then go on to sell them for a large profit. Often these people were professionals who came into contact with Aboriginal communities through their work. The prevalence of carpetbagging is one of the reasons art centres were established.

3. The works should be on good quality linen. If the work is painted black to the edge and the “canvas” feels plastic then it’s best avoided. Art centres do not offer paintings like that. In the past we have been offered paintings like this and could not authentic where or by who they were painted.

4. Beware of sheer bulk of work offered. If you are offered a choice of hundreds of paintings (remember the ones on a plastic feeling canvas) approach with care. Many of the Aboriginal communities are small with 30-150 artists painting at any one time. These works are then chosen by established galleries around the world.

5. If you want an Aboriginal painting try to buy one from a gallery with bricks and mortar not just an online presence. You should be able to see and feel the painting. Ask lots of questions about the stories behind the painting, the artist and the community. A legitimate Aboriginal art dealer will be able to answer all your questions as well as offer you anecdotal stories because they have been to the art centres and met the bulk of artists they represent.

6. Ochre paintings have employed “chemical fingerprints” so as to identify works produced by Aboriginal artists (ochres are mainly used by artists in the Kimberly region). The chemical is mixed with the paint so as to distinguish authentic art from imported art done by non-Aborignal artists.

7. Sometimes people comment that our paintings aren’t perfect. Funnily enough imperfections are what you are looking for in Aboriginal art. Many of our paintings will have bits of the desert in them, human or dog hair and we’ve even had one with tomato seeds! Dogs are central to Aboriginal communities and form an important part of art centre life so are often sitting close to the artists so it’s no surprise their hair makes it into some of the work. While the artists are incredibly gifted with geometric patterns if you have a work that’s gone slightly awry then it’s more likely authentic.

8. Steer clear of sites like eBay where a lot of fakes or paintings done under duress are offered.

9. Cultural appropriation is a major threat to the authentic Aboriginal art industry. Moves have been taken to curtail this, like the Australian Government initiative  ‘Fake Art Harms Culture’, but we ask you to be mindful when buying didgeridoos, boomerangs, digging sticks etc. A lot of these are imported from Indonesia and China. A shocking example of this in the UK was a fake work used in Ricky Gervais’s tv show After Life. The painting used was a copy of a painting by Warlimpirrnga Tjapaltjarri, Tingarri Dreaming (1987). Derek Productions, Gervais’s production company has since paid compensation to the artist and obtained a retrospective license to use the painting. Timna Woollard, the artist commissioned to copy the original art work has said to was among those commissioned for a UK television and prop company in 1989.

New Products arrive at Bay Gallery Home

Alma Nungarrayi Granites, Seven Sisters Dreaming umbrella

Amongst some of the fantastic new products we just had delivered are the Aboriginal design umbrellas. There’s four in the collection: Alma Nungarrayi Granites, Ruth Napaljarri Stewart, Theo Faye Nangala Hudson, Judith Napangardi Watson.

The umbrellas are a beautiful quality with a handle you can hang from your arm, buggy or walking aid. It also stands alone leaving no need for a ‘brolly bucket’ when you’re out shopping.

The umbrellas are available from Bay Gallery Home in Tetbury, Gloucestershire or online at www.baygalleryhome.com