Invitation to Hampstead Heath Affordable Art Fair 10-14 May 2023

In just under a month Bay Gallery Home will be exhibiting a curated collection of wonderful Central Desert Aboriginal art at the Hampstead Heath Affordable Art Fair.

This Affordable Art Fair we have our biggest artworks yet! Look out for paintings by the incredible Walter Jangala Brown and Chantelle Nampijinpa Robertson - both clearly inherited their famous relatives talent.

You’ll find us on a larger stand than usual, with more offerings than ever before. There will be a lot of gorgeous smaller works and the metal painted dogs are back. New editions include etchings from Kununurra by celebrated artists Billy Jibilloorn Duncan and Penny Archie. Bay Gallery Home really wants to expose our clients to fresh works reflecting the growth in our artists’ practice and our growth as a gallery.

Please let us know if you want to see anything in particular after taking a look at our website and we’ll make sure it is at the show. We are still busily updating the website as the paintings land from Australia, so keep an eye on it.

Please click the link below for VIP tickets.

If you would like to apply for Access All Area passes we have a limited number to give away. Please email alexandra@baygalleryhome.com for the AAA code.

We look forward to seeing you there. x

New Year brings New Aboriginal artwork to Bay Gallery Home

As we enter 2022 we have been busy curating new Aboriginal paintings across a range of emerging and established artists, sizes, and styles from the Central Desert communities we represent.

Among our highlights above are larger works in subdued colour’s for lovers of lighter hues as well as three smaller paintings packing a dynamic punch with their bold colours.

Last week visitors expressed their delight at seeing the paintings “in the flesh” having discovered them online. While photographs of the paintings are beautiful its difficult to capture the texture and depth of the paintings in a photographic format. The many layers of colour applied to each artwork make them very tactile; the irregularities and (sometimes) random flicks of paint assure you that the paintings travelled all the way from the Central Australian desert bearing elements of the artists personality.

Over the course of 2022, Covid permitting, Bay Gallery Home is hoping to exhibit in various art fairs across the country. If you have any near you you’d like us to know about please let us know and we’ll endeavour to explore opportunities to exhibit our gorgeous Aboriginal art works there.

Thank you for continued support of Bay Gallery Home and the artists we represent. Hope to see you in Tetbury soon. All the best for 2022!

Christmas Gift ideas - 'My Country' Aboriginal art cushions!

At Bay Gallery Home our gorgeous ‘My Country’ cushions are flying out the door with Christmas orders for them flying in.

Infused with 70,000 years of ancient culture our cushions bring you back to a place where our connection to earths natural beauty is freshly appreciated. Our cushions designs are translations of Aboriginal creation myths, law, topographical mapping, bush medicine and bush tucker. As each one is translated from Aboriginal paintings you are, in essence, buying an artwork while supporting the Central Desert artists and communities we represent.

The fabric collection comes in 12 different designs seven of which match our wallpapers. You can choose between cotton velvet, poly velvet, avanti linen and cotton fabrics in any of the designs. They are available ready made in 50x50cm, 40x40cm and various sized bolsters all with hidden zippers and feather or poly infills. Or you can order bespoke cushions.

Over the next few weeks we’ll be sharing more Christmas ideas with you including our wonderful upside down umbrellas which are perfect gifts for the people with everything!

Please get in touch with alexandra@baygalleryhome.com or call 077776 157 066 for more information regarding our cushions or making service.

Susan Osbourne interiors - Notting Hill

We are thrilled to share that Susan Osbourne, purveyor of fine French antique furniture now has our cotton velvet and avanti linen samples in her Goldborne Road showroom, Notting Hill.

“Susan Osbourne is one of the leading 19th Century French Chair specialists in the UK, offering chairs, sofas and chaise from our showroom in Golborne Road, with an unsupassed collction in terms of quality, quantity and unique styles. Clients choose their chair or sofa, their fabrics from a range of over 80 fabric houses.”

Among the world’s leading fabric houses you will be able to choose fabric from the ‘My Country' Aboriginal interiors collection. All our fabrics are made in the UK as we aim to support British design, manufacturing and our Central Desert artists, who receive a royalty from all of our sales.

Susan Osbourne’s showeroom is at:

83 Golborne Road, Notting Hill,  W10 5NL

020 8969 6255

http://www.susanosbourne.co.uk/contact/4579782641

Postage during Lockdown

Some of our orders are being delayed as our wonderful post office is operating limited hours so please bare with us while we get your orders out. DHL is operating as usual so any larger orders (including international) will be sent out within 24 hours of the order.

Post Office times in Tetbury are: 0900-1200 Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday only.

Painting orders dependent on size they will be sent via Royal Mail or DHL - we aim to have them sent within 24 hours.

All smaller orders from our Homeware & Accessories range will go out the day of order or nearest following postal day.

Additionally, postage prices went up as of 1 March but we will not be passing those on until circumstances improve across the board.

We have enormous gratitude for the staff at the Tetbury Post Office and DHL for continuing to operate during this difficult time.

All the best to everyone.

Bay Gallery Home

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.