Emma Hercus, Alice Toomer, Aida Smith, Hugo Van Dorsser, James Watkins, Esme Lansdowne, Suzanne Lustig

While the gallery rests, Summer Season can be viewed through the window until we re-open in late-January. Seven of our gallery artists are presenting both old and new works that consider place, memory, and the spaces where life gathers – threads that feel especially present at this time of year. 

This window display moves from Emma Hercus’s layered folkloric scenes to a moment of Alice Toomer’s domestic stillness; from Aida Smith’s softened threshold of memory to Hugo Van Dorsser’s dreamlike returns to the imaginative spaces of childhood. James Watkins offers a vivid work shaped by gesture, colour and nature, while UK-based artist Esme Lansdowne’s painting is rooted in pigment, process, and the material histories of place. Finally, Suzanne Lustig brings an intuitive, playful and graphic composition shaped by both her European roots and the visual rhythms of Aotearoa. 

Viewed from the footpath, Summer Season offers a small pause amid the long, bright days of summer – a reminder that even as the gallery recharges, the work continues to glow outward.