Don’t Look Gallery

419 New Canterbury Rd, Dulwich Hill

Open Thursday – Saturday 11am – 5pm

By Sonya Gee

The 38-year-old gallery owner laughs about an afternoon when three teenage boys entered ‘Don’t Look’ looking particularly sheepish.  A rather awkward inquiry soon followed, was this, ahem, a brothel? ‘Nope, nope, close!’ Shapley recalls gleefully, ‘It’s an art gallery.’

As its name implies, ‘Don’t Look Gallery’ is deliberately unconventional and provocative. On this particular morning the front windows are cloaked with heavy black curtains, blocking the sunlight from disrupting the Braille exhibition being held inside, a work by new media artist Jessica Tyrrell that explores the experience of being blind.

Shapley was intent on creating a new type of art space, an experimental space that is not limited to visual art. Perched on the edge of a milk crate in the rundown kitchen at the back of the gallery, Shapley is friendly and unassuming.  ‘I think offering a space where artists feel they don’t have to sell is important and it’s all a big experiment.  If artists want to try something ridiculous and it doesn’t work, well that’s fine.’ With a background in sound, photography and video art (‘I’ve tried a bit of everything,’ he says), Shapley was frustrated by expense of exhibiting, a frustration which became curiosity as to how much it would cost to open his own gallery.  Noticing the number of empty shop fronts in the industrial suburb of Dulwich Hill in Sydney’s inner west, he made a few inquiries and ended up with his own gallery.

 The gallery is an unusually shaped space with equally bizarre features.  Black columns and arches frame the front window, whilst the backroom is decorated with intricate green and gold wallpaper, all hinting at the previous uses of the shop, from an acupuncture clinic to a painting and decorating service.  The most successful exhibitions, Shapley says, have been the ones that have fully exploited the possibilities of the physical space, from its narrow hallway and shop window to the small ceiling loft that has served as a mezzanine level for performances.

 He describes ‘Don’t Look’ as a new media gallery but is quick to point out that it is not purely focused on digital media.  ‘It really means beyond painting and sculpture.  Basically it isn’t commodifiable so things like conceptual performance are a big part of new media, which people don’t always comprehend.’ Over the past year, the art gallery where ‘nothing is too strange’ has housed everything from large framed grass panels (‘sound and grass,’ he says by way of explanation), cut out clockwork dancers concealed beneath a fake floor and integrated video and live performances.

 ‘Don’t Look gallery’ literally housed Sydney artist Matthew Rochford, who lived in the shop’s front window for a fortnight and would wake, mid-morning to find half a dozen people staring at him.  ‘It was really good, people really enjoyed it,’ Sharpley says of the spectacle he was initially apprehensive about.  ‘I thought he was going to lock himself in the gallery and it was going to be this really torturous thing where he basically cuts himself off from the world for two weeks.  But it actually turned out to be the exact opposite of that.’ Shapley beams like a proud parent, before labeling Rochford as one to watch.  ‘Matt opened up the gallery so people could come and talk to him, he would do little performances in the window, he would write stuff on the window to people outside.  He had people visit him from Newcastle and all over the place!’

 Shapley is most excited about helping artists like Rochford develop their ideas and giving them the opportunity to publicly display their work. ‘I like when people come to me with really good ideas even if it’s not fully formed because then we can sit down and sort of go through it and see what equipment I’ve got here and how the space will work.  I like to be involved in helping artists formulate ideas.  I find that a big part of the fun, taking artists who might be a bit shy about exhibiting and helping them put something on.’

 His next exhibition will feature the work of Liam Frost, an especially eager fourteen year old, a student at the local visual arts school who is an avid attendee of the opening nights and ‘ Don’t Look’ exhibitions.  Shapley knows that the artist is busily working on something, having seen sketches and animations that predominantly feature the adventures of ‘Goatman and Friends’ and is glad that he has the flexibility to be able to offer Frost a space for his first exhibition.  ‘I used to be worried about the next years program,’ he admits, ‘but now I’m really against that.  I really want to hold out and say to people, yes in two months time, you can have an exhibition, so the ideas are fresh, it’s not a work they have filed away for two years and they have to start straight away.’

 That said he does have something in mind for April.   ‘We’ve got this woman who wants to lactate in the front window, which will be interesting,’ he says, with not so much of as a smile.

www.myspace.com/dontlookgallery

dontlookgallery@gmail.com

Greg Shapley’s Top 5 things he wish he’d never seen

1. The gallery ‘the morning after’ most exhibition openings (what a mess!)
2. John Howard being elected
3. The bill for my broken front window in the gallery
4. John Howard being elected… again (…and again)
5. The Central coast – there’s something spooky about them there towns – kinda Stepford wives-ish.