Porthole Gallery to enliven Harbour Town

The Mission to Seafarers Victoria (MtSV) will open a gallery celebrating maritime art at Harbour Town this month.

To be known as the Maritime Porthole Gallery, the space will feature the work of artists who exhibit at the annual Mission to Seafarers Art Prize and Exhibition.

According to MtSV operations manager Bill Reid, the purpose of the gallery is to raise awareness of the mission and its interest in maritime heritage.

The gallery has been made possible through Harbour Town offering an unleased space rent-free on a short-term basis, similar to Renew Australia’s Docklands Spaces initiative.

Artists will have the opportunity to exhibit and sell work in the space, with a percentage of the profit going back to the mission.

Mr Reid also said the gallery could offer an artist-in-residence program.

“There are close to 100 artists that contribute to the exhibition and when we recently ran a boat cruise to the ports we had over 46 attendees,” Mr Reid said.

“I would expect most of those would show a interest in exhibiting from time to time.”

Colin Palethorpe said he had been entering work in the mission art prize for about seven years and was keen to get involved in the Porthole Gallery.

“I have plenty of work sitting at home that could be exhibited here,” Mr Palethorpe said.

Harbour Town’s Richard Unsworth said the centre supported the mission as a valuable part of the Docklands community.

“When they approached us with the proposal, we saw a valuable opportunity to bring interesting local art to people at street level,” Mr Unsworth said.

Mr Reid said the gallery would be open as often as possible, depending on the availability of volunteers.

The gallery is located on Docklands Drive at Harbour Town and is expected to open around mid-August.