Christmas special - My Country Tiles

Our wonderful My Country ceramic wall tiles have been reduced as a special Christmas gift to our clients.   Please get in touch if you'd like to order at £20 off per tile over the Christmas period.  Or you can order online at www.baygalleryhome.com.

Our innovative Bush Onion 2 tile sequence lets you create your own artwork:  perfect for bathrooms, kitchens, pools and summer houses.

Alma Nungarrayi Granites

We have sadly learnt that one of our favourite artists who was also an incredibly inspirational women has passed away.  On our recent trip to our Aboriginal communities in  Australia we caught up with Alma.  She had been ill for some time but we believed she had beaten her illness so it was a dreadful shock to find out she has died.  Alma had started painting again following her illness and we were looking forward to having more of her works after her sell out show at Bay Gallery Home in 2015.  Sadly, this will not be the case.  

Alma was instrumental in helping obtain permission to create the 'My Country' interiors collection and for that we are forever grateful.  Our thoughts are with her family, the art centre staff and the Community.

On our visit in Easter we caught up with Alma who shared her recent works with us.

Snapshots of our Art Sourcing Trip in the Australian Central Desert

Detail from a painting we will be bringing back to Bay Gallery Home's Gallery, a fine example of the ever-evolving work of contemporary Australian Aboriginal Artists.

On the road to Uluru, after being Fool-uru by Mount Conner...

Here's a detail from Australian Aboriginal Street Art in Papunya, by Candy - a dynamic work of Art that feels full of expression and relevance.

Mount Conner, also called 'Fool-uru' by locals for so often being mistaken for Uluru..

Some of the rich stylistic variety of contemporary Australian Aboriginal artists, each incarnating the Artist's experience and connection with Country, their land and identity heritage.

Painting Australia

Tidal mark, Kings Canyon inside Watarrka National Park, Northern Territory, Australia. 

The Australian Aboriginal people are the one of the oldest continuous populations on earth, and their visual language is considered one of the world’s oldest Art forms, spanning over 50,000 years.  The connection to 'Country' is essential. Their tribal Dreamings, creation and mapping myths, rituals and sacred topography inspire bold, beautiful abstract paintings featuring the landscape, plants and animals of Australia's central desert. The Aboriginals see no difference between themselves, the sky, the land and the animals they share it with.  All are one and the same.

Fun times in the studio!

Bay Gallery Home believes passionately in respecting, supporting and promoting the Aboriginal communities it represents.  Despite a way of life that continues to be endangered, the Australian Aboriginal people continue to exhibit the incredible resilience and adaptation to change that has sustained them over the many millennia they have inhabited Australia.

Yet, they are at a cross road, and the contemporary Art movement now plays a significant role in giving them a voice. The majority of artists Bay Gallery Home represents are hard working, determined women providing themselves with an income to provide for their children. The money generated by the Aboriginal owned corporations creates mobility, educational and work opportunities across the community.  Our artists are remunerated for the purchase of their works, and receive a percentage of any interiors' sale.

Irrepressible creativity: very Arts & Crafts!

Colour gems waiting for the right buyer.

We have represented artists from the communities of Central Australia since 2008, and are proud to be one of the rare exclusively dedicated Australian Aboriginal Art galleries in the UK. 

Bay Gallery Home's relationship with the Central Australian Aboriginal artists is one of trust, founded on respect for their heritage and contemporary ways of life. In our dealings we have the utmost consideration for the codes of conduct and sensibilities that surround the provenance of this ancient Art & the multi-generational communities that keep the artwork alive & vibrant.

The colours of Australia

Detail of local flora from a vibrant painting by Colleen Ngwarraye Morton, 'Women's Ceremony and Bush Medicine' – sold through our ART page & in our Tetbury gallery.

“I feel with my body. Feeling all these trees, all this country. When this blow you can feel it. Same for country... you feel it, you can look, but feeling... that make you.”

– Big Bill Neidjie, Gagudju Elder, Kakadu.

The origins of our art gallery, and now our art-driven interiors collection, is a long-standing personal and professional connection with Central Desert artists. Theirs is an arid land with extensive dry seasons, which is the birthplace of what is sometimes called 'Aboriginal desert painting,' at the forefront of the contemporary Aboriginal art movement.

"The chief function of colour should be to serve expression as well as possible."

Henri Matisse, from "Notes of a Painter"

Within the indigenous Australian cultures and traditions, the artist holds a sacred individual freedom to engage with their own Dreamtime and connection with country, to express a facet of life through a personal choice of brushstroke and form and colour – all the while anchored within the inherited horizon of a collective dream. The use of colours in the contemporary aboriginal art paintings reflect not only the Australian landscape but the world of their imagination, which encompasses past, present and future.

Another detail of local flora from a vibrant painting by Colleen Ngwarraye Morton, 'Women's Ceremony and Bush Medicine' – sold through our ART page & in our Tetbury gallery.

Alice Springs lies at the heart of this region, between the dramatic MacDonnell Ranges and the Todd River. It has historically been a place "crucial to the development of art and as a meeting place, place of exchange and part-time residence for people from the hundreds of Aboriginal communities throughout the central, northern, southern and western regions."* The resilient spirit of its communities, the role they play in political & cultural movements remains very much alive, notably with the iconic annual Desert Mob Art fair.

Throughout, the work of the indigenous artists we represent is a reflection of their personal engagement with a historical and deep spiritual affinity to the land, which they tell and re-tell through art to old and new audiences, layering creation myth upon botanical record, wisdom upon experience, colour upon colour.

Intrepid Alexandra on her current sourcing trip, criss-crossing the Australian Central Desert...

*quote from McCulloch's very excellent Contemporary Aboriginal Art: The Complete Guide.

Art Sourcing Trip to Central Australia

As Spring finds its way back to England, we at Bay Gallery Home are getting ready for a sourcing trip into Australia's remote Central Desert region.

Bay Gallery Home's origins are intimately connected with this country, initiated when one of the Northern Territory communities approached founder Alexandra to represent them in the UK. The seeds of Alexandra's relationship with these artists can be traced back to the roots of her family's own connection with Australia, when a French ancestor arrived in Australia in the 1880's. From being early collectors of Aboriginal artefacts to working on Aboriginal accounts and nursing their communities, successive generations have maintained an association with these communities. Bay Gallery Home's relationship with the Central Australian Aboriginal artists is one of trust, founded on respect for their heritage and contemporary way of life. 

A sourcing trip is an adventure in itself, full of dust and heat and a challenge to the best laid plans of mice and men – yet replete with treasure. Our month-long journey will start from Alice Springs, moving across the Northern Territory into the APY lands, visiting Uluru, Kings Canyon and our Aboriginal communities, including Papunya Tula – the birthplace of the contemporary art movement.  We will then head up through the Northern Territory, crossing into Western Australia where we will make our first stop at Halls Creek, after 19 hours driving on dirt roads. After staying here for a few days, it will be time to head out again towards Kununurra, where we’ll be sourcing some Kimberly artwork. These artists notably still work with natural ochres, and have a completely different style to that of the communities we currently represent.

Detail from a Water Dreaming by Shorty Jangala Robertson, a famed colour-field abstractionist. The original is available to buy through our ART gallery.

An important part of a sourcing trip is taking the time to meet with the artists, to understand the evolution of their art and re-establish relationships. Alexandra's young children will be travelling with her and are really looking forward to meeting and playing with the Aboriginal children.  Language is no barrier to the young, it’s bound to be a moving experience watching them contemplate each other for the first time.

We will be open for business as usual, and will be updating you all on our epopees via Instagram and this website.