An uncommon feeling in a gallery is the feeling that it’s a down-to-earth artist space but this is the experience of walking into Rogue Pop-Up Gallery at 130 Regent Street, Redfern, a wonderfully unaffected artist-focused gallery, run by Diane Larter.
Although Rogue Pop-Up Gallery is a professional and commercial business, it has the vibe of a community art space in all the best ways. It’s a gallery that aims to build and support its own community of artists; it’s an unpretentious gallery in an unpretentious area in Redfern; on the day that I visited, a bike delivery rider was insulting one of the workers in a shop three doors down with a tirade of abuse, challenging him to a fight. This isn’t the salubrious streets of Mosman or Double Bay!
Diane sees her role as a gallery owner as being quite simple: “It’s just to represent the artists and I hope to do it properly. Make sure they get paid, they get their exhibitions”. She learnt her trade the old-fashioned way, by working in one of Sydney’s leading art galleries, Watters Gallery.
“I come from an artist family so I understand a bit about the arts from that.” Diane grew up with her artist parents, Richard and Pat Larter, both influential Sydney artists in the mid-twentieth century. Richard was known for his pop art paintings, while Pat was involved in the international mail art movement and maintained her own art practice. She was also a muse for her husband, Richard, who depicted her in several paintings and artworks. Diane’s parents often collaborated on works, signing them ‘Pat & Dick’.
But the artists’ life, even of successful artists, isn’t an easy one. “You could see by the struggle that we weren’t wealthy at all. We never went on the big trips to Canberra and stuff like that that other people did. We went to the library instead.”
Diane worked at the Sydney art institution Watters Gallery in Darlinghurst for twenty years until its closure in 2019. “The gallery I worked at, which had been open for 55 years, closed because the directors were in their mid-80s by then. And I thought, what the hell am I going to do?” So Diane tested the waters with a temporary gallery in King Street, Newtown and its success encouraged her to establish Rogue Pop-Up Gallery in Redfern.
Many of the established artists from Watters Gallery joined Diane at Rogue Pop-Up Gallery, including Chris O’Doherty, Ian Howard, Tony Tuckson, Ruth Waller, Frank Littler, Catherine Hearse and Leo Loomans.
Chris O’Doherty is also known as Reg Mombassa and needs no introduction as he is very well known for his Mambo artwork.
Ian Howard has consistently researched the relationship between the military and civilian populations and has produced numerous rubbings of military vehicles (planes, tanks and ships).
Tony Tuckson was the deputy director of the Art Gallery of New South Wales and, being a very moral person, rarely exhibited due to his position at the gallery. He exhibited only twice at Watters Gallery, the last exhibition being in 1973. He died six months later, aged 52. His style spans from early figuration through abstract expressionism to gestural paintings that can bear comparison with the greatest abstract art of the last century.
These established artists have been joined by new artists, such as Maria Pia Mosquera, who is a Colombian-born artist who uses mythology, folklore and Latin American imagery with a contemporary twist. Her work is a riot of religious iconography, both rampant and fantastical. There is also Walter Kenyon, who uses the internet to source a lot of his imagery, and Russell Carey, an amazing, overlooked artist who paints the city mainly at night, with haunting shadows and suggestive tensions in his work. The list goes on to include contemporary artists such as Shannon Johnson, Wart, Jolon Larter (who is also Diane’s nephew and gallery assistant), and Emelia Simcox.
Diane loves running Rogue and putting up a new exhibition. “It’s rather exciting because you know what’s been done in the past by that artist and you’ve got all the new work and you go, oh, wow, that’s rather exciting and deciding where it’s going to go on the walls and everything.”
The relationship between gallerist and artist is essential to Rogue Pop-Up Gallery and Diane has a very pragmatic approach: Rogue has a non-exclusive relationship with its artists, meaning that they’re free to exhibit elsewhere if other opportunities pop up; as Diane notes, “in this day and age, you have to be able to do stuff in between your two shows every two years, because it’s really hard. These days, it’s harder than it used to be.”
Diane doesn’t involve herself in her artists’ work. She doesn’t believe a gallerist should interfere; instead, she lets them create and provides a space for them to exhibit their work. She plans on each artist having a major exhibition with Rogue every two years.
The common thread to the artists who exhibit through Rogue Pop-Up Gallery is that they’re all obsessed with creating art. They have to create compulsively and have a prolific output. The challenge is selecting the most appropriate work for an exhibition. “They all have to do art so I don’t have that problem of people needing a prod to get the art done. Usually, it’s the other way around. It’s like we’ve got to sort through all the art to find what we’re going to exhibit, what looks the best.”
But Diane is only interested in authentic art – art that’s created because of a genuine need to create. “Just that it’s genuine art. Not just a quick thing that’s been shoved out because it needed to be shoved out. Because it needed to be exhibited. It’s the genuine process of approaching the artwork and the art.”
You won’t find long descriptions attached to artworks explaining each piece at the gallery. “If you have to have an expansive description on your artwork, I feel it’s failed because the person should be able to just walk up and look at the artwork and have their own perception of that artwork.”
For Diane, the joy of being a gallerist comes from watching the long-term development of an artist’s career. “You see show after show after show of a person developing and then they can go, you know, so divergent. They can go this way, that way. Whereas some people just go straight and it’s the usual kind of exhibition that you expect from them. Sometimes it will surprise us, sometimes it won’t. That’s all wonderful stuff.”
Rogue is an unpretentious, no-frills gallery, with its represented artists at the centre of all the activity, and Diane wouldn’t have it any other way. “I’m not one of these people that go out, with a bunch of curators and have dinner because that, to me, is just such a waste of time, money and everything. I could buy an artwork with the dinner bill. And I find that really offensive. I’d rather work with the artist and pay them or buy an artwork, which is paying them more.”
Although a gallery’s commission might seem excessive to some, many fail to appreciate the numerous overheads a gallery has to cover throughout the year come rain or sunshine, starting with high rents, marketing, insurance, administration costs and staff wages. It’s not cheap keeping the doors open. Diane tries to balance the competing needs of the gallery and its artists. “I’ve kept the commission [rate] as low as I possibly can.”
Diane makes no pretensions about why she set up Rogue Pop-Up Gallery. “I’m not sitting here thinking, ‘oh I’m going to be a millionaire in a few years.’ No!” Her focus is solely on her artists, “making sure they get paid and have the exhibitions. I mean, that’s it for an artist. It’s all about having an exhibition. So just providing the space for said exhibitions is a really great boon for the artists.”
Diane has some advice for potential art buyers and it’s simple: “Buy what you like! If you like what you see, buy it. Don’t buy it because it’s a name, which is what a lot of people do. Buy what you like. You only live once. Just do it!”
Rogue Pop-Up Gallery
130 Regent St, Redfern
Open Wed-Sat 11-6PM, Sun 11-5PM
Closed Mon-Tue
