Night Gardens
LOCAL ARTIST MARITA ALBERS is known for vivid colours, birds and tropical foliage in her work, but becoming a serious artist was something that happened quite accidentally.
“I started painting seriously when I moved to Darwin in 2001. I’d done a couple of paintings that I’d given to out as gifts, but when I started working in a café – Relish, it was called, where Kurt’s Cakes is now – they said their walls were a bit blank and they wanted to do something about it,” she says.
“I said ‘I’m an artist’, so they let me do a bunch of paintings to cover the walls, and I sold five in the first week. That’s how it all started.”
Marita opens her first solo exhibition in two years, the second to be held at the historic Audit House after Marnie Jay’s Born to be Wild last month.
Marita won third place for an artwork submitted to Pandamonia – an exhibition hosted by the Federal MP for Solomon, Luke Gosling, to share the talent of local Territory artists. The National Trust sponsored third place, which is how the opportunity to exhibit at Audit House came about.
Marita says the space lends itself to exhibiting artwork.
“I think the space makes it better. As I mostly paint tropical themes, Night Gardens has a real kind of jungley, tropical flow, with starry skies,” she says.
“Artwork hung in a big louvered room with space, tropical Darwin architecture and that real 1980s feel with cane furniture – it’s just lovely.”
Marita spent the last six months producing and selling art out of a little shop she temporarily occupied in Air Raid Arcade, and says she’s excited about putting on a solo exhibition.
“It’ll be good. This is a nice opportunity to have a focus, and to fill that beautiful space in Audit House. Dom’s Bar is also doing the bar for opening night, which is exciting, so there’s food and drinks in the garden before the show. I don’t know what I’m more excited about!”
Night Gardens
WHEN FRI 2 OCT – SAT 31 OCT | OPENING FRI 2 OCT, 5-8PM | MON-FRI, 9AM-2PM | SAT & SUN, 10AM–3PM
AT AUDIT HOUSE, LARRAKEYAH
Header, thumbnail & inset: Marita Albers, 'Star Swoop' (detail), 2020, acrylic on canvas, 25x30cm
