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Ararat Gallery was established in 1968 as a few small rooms in the Old Municipal Offices of the Ararat Town Hall. Taking inspiration from Ararat’s historical association with fine merino wool production, we have been committed to exhibiting and collecting textile and fibre art since the 1970s.

We are custodians of over a thousand artworks and objects, including quilts, tapestries, basketry, embroideries, sculpture and weavings.

Over the last 55 years the Gallery space has increased significantly, most recently during the Arts Precinct Redevelopment Project, completed in August 2018. During that project, the Gallery doubled its exhibition and collection spaces, and in recognition of its significant textile collection was renamed Ararat Gallery TAMA – Textile Art Museum Australia.

This exhibition features work by John Corbett, Kate Derum, Merrill Dumbrell, Carolyn Dunn, Hannah Gartside, Jordan Marani, Belinda Ramson and Jemina Wyman.

Ararat Gallery was established in 1968 as a few small rooms in the Old Municipal Offices of the Ararat Town Hall. Taking inspiration from Ararat’s historical association with fine merino wool production, we have been committed to exhibiting and collecting textile and fibre art since the 1970s.

We are custodians of over a thousand artworks and objects, including quilts, tapestries, basketry, embroideries, sculpture and weavings.

Over the last 55 years the Gallery space has increased significantly, most recently during the Arts Precinct Redevelopment Project, completed in August 2018. During that project, the Gallery doubled its exhibition and collection spaces, and in recognition of its significant textile collection was renamed Ararat Gallery TAMA – Textile Art Museum Australia.

This exhibition features work by Andrew Chapman, Lois Densham, Rosemary Draper, Tony Dyer, Lucas Grogan, Michelle Hamer, Alan Holland, Cara Johnson, Barbara Macey, Letty Nicholls, Joy Smith, Patrick Snelling and Wendy Stavrianos.

Taking inspiration from Ararat’s historical association with fine merino wool production, Ararat Gallery TAMA (Textile Art Museum Australia) has been committed to exhibiting and collecting textile and fibre art since the 1970s.   

We are custodians of over a thousand artworks and objects, including quilts, tapestries, basketry, embroideries, sculpture and weavings.   

Textiles are universally familiar. We are surrounded by them daily in our clothes, our homes, our workplaces.   

The comfort and softness of cloth and fabric also make textiles an ideal medium for subversive, thought-provoking artworks.   

Many textile and fibre-based artworks look different each time they are exhibited; the elements fall and sit uniquely every time they are installed, reshaping with each outing. The artworks are responsive to their environment – watch carefully to see them gently rise and fall in the air flow.  

This exhibition encompasses artworks held in the TAMA Collection, as well as artworks in the Victorian State Craft Collection, which have been on long-term loan to the gallery since 2004. 

Featuring the work of: Marie Cook, John Corbett, Mary Coughlan, Fernando do Campo, Pru La Motte, Elizabeth Milpilangurr, Shirley Minjingala, Winnie Pelz, Vivienne Pengilley, Nalda Searles,  Ema Shin, Jayn Thomas, Jenny Watson, Susan Wirth and Diana Wood Conroy.

Within the Ararat Gallery TAMA Collection, there is a sub-collection of miniature textile artworks. The majority of these miniatures were acquired in the 1980s, when the Gallery hosted a series of Biennial Acquisitive Exhibitions.

The Biennials became a major source of acquisitions for the Gallery, with the artworks of both established and emerging fibre artists adding to the Gallery’s developing collection of fibre and textiles.

The first two Biennials, in 1981 and 1983, concentrated on miniature textile works not exceeding 20 centimetres in any dimension. This provided a rare opportunity for textile artists working on a miniature scale to exhibit in an established regional gallery. For the 3rd Biennial exhibition in 1985 the size limit was increased to no greater than 40 centimetres in any dimension. This was seen as an extension of the miniature concept and gave the overall exhibition a greater diversity in size and content while maintaining the practical advantages of the miniature scale.

For this exhibition we have also selected small-scale artworks that were acquired at other times through the collection’s history.

Miniature artworks can be an opportunity for artists to experiment with materials and forms in ways that might not be possible with larger pieces. This can lead to innovative or unconventional uses of fabric, thread, and other fibres. The small scale of these works highlight attention to detail, skill, and precision. Artists may use delicate stitching or intricate weaving techniques that showcase their mastery of materials.

Miniatures offer an intimate, personal connection with the viewer. Their smallness invites closer inspection and encourages a sense of discovery or wonder.

Taking inspiration from Ararat’s historical association with fine merino wool production, Ararat Gallery TAMA (Textile Art Museum Australia) has been committed to exhibiting and collecting textile and fibre art since the 1970s.

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Taking inspiration from Ararat’s historical association with fine merino wool production, Ararat Gallery TAMA (Textile Art Museum Australia) has been committed to exhibiting and collecting textile and fibre art since the 1970s.

We are custodians of over a thousand artworks and objects, including quilts, tapestries, basketry, embroideries, sculpture and weavings.

Textiles are universally familiar. We are surrounded by them daily in our clothes, our homes, our workplaces.

The comfort and softness of cloth and fabric also makes textiles an ideal medium for subversive, thought-provoking artworks.

Many textile and fibre-based artworks look different each time they are exhibited; the elements fall and sit uniquely every time they are installed, reshaping with each outing. The artworks are responsive to their environment – watch carefully to see them gently rise and fall in the air flow.

This exhibition encompasses artworks held in the TAMA Collection, as well as artworks in the Victorian State Craft Collection, which have been on long-term loan to the gallery since 2004. You will also find work by guest artist, Misako Nakahira.

In conversations across time, the multi-disciplinary works of mother and daughter Heather and Kate Dorrough explore the nexus between the arts and crafts movements, female creative lineage, body and landscape, river and fertility, and environmental issues and activism. This dynamic contemporary exhibition encompasses fibre art, paintings, prints, ceramics, sculpture and video.

Heather Dorrough (1933 – 2018) is a renowned textile, sculpture and printmaker, noted for her contributions to the shift from a craft-based tradition to the arts in the 1970s to 1980s. This exhibition includes her earlier fabric hangings and low relief sculptures that were her most significant works, including the textile works, ‘The Wool Corporation’ 1976 and ‘Dusk’ 1978 held in the Ararat Gallery TAMA Collection. Originally trained as an interior designer, she worked in London and New York before arriving in Australia in 1962, and began making fabric and fibre works after the birth of daughter Kate. Dorrough developed her own individual techniques with machine embroidery, painting with dyes, and sculptural use of fabric. Her work is represented in national, state and regional gallery collections, including significant public commissions.

The practice of Sydney-based artist Kate Dorrough (b.1964) sustains a conversation between paint and clay, launching an inquiry into the interplay and tension between the gestural mark and the hand built ceramic form. The artist’s recent work explores the river as metaphor, bestowal of fertility with a cyclicality of renewal and destruction. Her painterly gestural marks evoke totemic symbols and an inferred language of an enduring landscape. Dorrough’s work as a painter and ceramicist has led to an extensive career exhibiting work at leading galleries in Sydney, Melbourne, Brisbane and Canberra, as well as a number of residencies and prizes. In this exhibition her work will directly respond to her mother’s, creating a dialogue exploring memory and the personal in recognition of her mother as mentor.

The exhibition will launch a timely book on Heather’s extensive career spanning sixty years, including essays by art writers and curators Christine France, Julie Ewington, Dr Peter Emmett, and Anne Brennan.

Since 2015, the Tapestry Design Prize for Architects (TDPA) has fostered exciting new creative dialogues between architects and tapestry weavers.

In 2023, architects were challenged to design a tapestry for Kerstin Thompson Architect’s Bundanon Art Museum.

Showcasing the resulting ten finalist’s designs, sections of these were woven as large format studies by weavers from the Australian Tapestry Workshop (ATW). Leonie Bessant, Chris Cochius, Amy Cornall, Saffron Gordon, Tim Gresham, Pamela Joyce, David Pearce, Emma Sulzer and Caroline Tully all responded individually to a section of each design that inspired or intrigued them. These Propositions provide a glimpse into the potential for these designs to be realised as large-scale tapestries.

These designs and the resulting woven studies are a snapshot into contemporary thinking on tapestry’s ability to enhance architectural spaces; they celebrate the artistry and technical skills of ATW weavers and the creative and innovative possibilities available to architects, artists, and designers.