To most people, an empty office space in Mitchell is a business opportunity.
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But for Ilias Ellis, the square, light-filled room next door to his energy-efficiency company was the perfect space to show art.
And not just any art, but that of his mother, Gloria Leta Ellis, who died in 2011, leaving behind piles of vibrant canvases.
Mr Ellis opened Leta Gallery and Project Space last month with his daughter, Melody Ellis, as a not-for-profit facility for artists to show their work.
He said while he had always admired his mother’s work ethic and treasured the work she left behind, he had never thought about opening a gallery until the day he wandered into the recently vacated office next door.
“I walked in here and went, oh my goodness, it’s a gallery, and not only a gallery but it’s got perfect storage space at the back,” he said.
Melody Ellis, an artist, curator and writer who co-founded a gallery in Sydney’s Surrey Hills several years ago, said Leta was an opportunity to run a space on a different model to other galleries.
“I think that there are very few artist-run initiatives in Canberra, partly because it’s hard to generate an audience here, even though it’s a reasonably-sized city, and we were lucky because that space is pretty much ready-made,” she said.
The facility doesn’t charge a fee for artists, but the space is unmanned during the week, leaving the artist to set up appointments or supervise the space themselves.
Leta is currently showing works by its namesake, who lived and worked in Canberra for many years.
Mr Ellis said his mother was “a radical thinker and a radical artist, but she was a Greek housewife”.
“She never really sold a lot of work. If you think it’s difficult for Canberra artists now, there she was, this wild artist, but at the same time a Greek housewife,” he said.
Ms Ellis, who studied at Sydney College of the Arts and worked as a project manager at the Athens Biennale, said her grandmother had been devoted to her work.
“She’s certainly one of the most committed artists I’ve met,” she said.
“I went to art school and I’ve been involved with artists and biennales and such, and so I’m around artists, and one of the most amazing things about Gloria is she was a true artist in the sense that she practiced, so right up until the end she would paint every day.”
She said her work covered various styles, genres and subject matters.
“She was a guide at the National Gallery and would get quite influenced by a lot of shows. I think she was a unique artist,” she said.
“She did exhibit and she went to Julian Ashton Art School, and she had a studio at M16 and had a few shows there … It’s been a bit of a privilege just to pull out her paintings and put them up.”
But she said it was just as important to be able to show the work of other artists in the space.
“Although we’ve named it after her and it’s been something that we really wanted to do for her, it’s not like it’s all about her,” she said.
“I’m interested in showing at the moment mostly local work, and contemporary emerging art practice.”
Leta Gallery and Project Space, at 2/23 Buckland Street, Mitchell, is showing Judith and Holofernes, a collection of works by the late Gloria Ellis. Its next show, opening in August, will be by Canberra artist Katy Mutton.