Lismore Regional Gallery

About the Gallery

Lismore Regional Gallery sits alongside the Lismore Library and Northern Rivers Conservatorium at the heart of the Lismore Quadrangle. The building and wider precinct offers plenty of opportunities to take time out for yourself, or meet with others. Lismore Regional Gallery has established itself as an organisation known for presenting a bold program of largely self-generated exhibitions. We invest in artists in the commissioning of new work, and bring the community along on a shared journey of making and engaging in contemporary art. Our Vision, ‘A Place for Every Body’, builds on our past and continued work in ensuring that everything we do connects deeply with the community, and builds on our work in supporting artists and audiences with different access needs.

Collection Strengths

The Gallery’s collection started in 1948 and features significant Australian artists including Lloyd Rees, Margaret Olley, Albert Namatjira, Thea Proctor, Judy Cassab, Kevin Connor, Bronwyn Bancroft, Digby Moran, Lindy Lee and Scott Redford. One of the Gallery’s collections strengths is documentary photography and it holds collections of images of the Nimbin Aquarius Festival (1973); The Terana Blockade (1979) and suites of images of local community members by Jacklyn Wagner and Peter Derrett (2001 and 2017–18). The Hannah Cabinet created by Lismore-based master craftsman Geoffrey Hannah is the Gallery’s destination piece and on permanent display.

Programming Strengths

Lismore Regional Gallery presents a broad and constantly evolving program of exhibitions from historical to contemporary, traditional to experimental, and profiling artists from the nationally significant to local, emerging. The gallery showcases curated exhibitions, touring exhibitions and has a dedicated gallery for the permanent collection. The program is varied across the year so that it reflects the diverse interests and voices of people from our region and beyond.

Exhibition Spaces

The gallery has 5 main exhibition spaces. Located on the first floor is our largest space The Margaret Olley Gallery which has 63m of wall space and three other smaller gallery spaces (Gallery 2, 3 & 4) each containing 29m of wall space. Gallery 4 is a dedicated space for works on display from our permanent collection. On the ground floor is the prominently located Jenny Dowell Gallery that has 22m of wall space and prioritises local early career artists in a program through an application process held once a year.