Grainger Gallery’s big, bold, beautiful new (but old) digs

Posted on 9 February, 2026

For Canberra artist and gallery owner Kacy Grainger and her husband Richard, it’s out with the new and in with the old.

After nearly five years in a schmick modern space within the Dairy Road precinct, the couple are moving themselves and their ever-growing rank of exhibiting artists to one of Canberra’s most iconic buildings – the giant former timber warehouse at 34 Geelong Street in Fyshwick.

Kacy and Richard saw the historic two-storey brick building in 2024, and it was, as they say in the romance novels, love at first sight.

They purchased the cavernous building just over a year ago, delighting in its vaulted ceilings and exposed beams, and turned it into an event space while life in the gallery at Dairy Road continued at full tilt.

But just as Kacy says, you need to live in a home before you make any changes to it. They were always formulating ideas on how to bring the best of two worlds together – their love of the warehouse and their love of gallery life.

Hence, it has been a relatively straightforward decision to move out of their Dairy Road gallery and move permanently into the warehouse.

In preparation they have been busy renovating the space, originally constructed in 1963.

For those who have enjoyed a function there (including the sell-out crowd who came to see Fashion Critical just a few months ago), the bar and sitting area in the front of the building are gone, and it is a case of clear space, white walls and maximum impact for the coming art shows.

“We really believe there is something quite magical about the space and its ability to hold and show off the art. It is a completely different experience to Dairy Road and one we feel art lovers are going to enjoy.”

It’s also rare to find a genuine warehouse experience in Canberra, and given the reactions of almost everyone who has walked through the doors since they opened last year, the couple knows the building will continue to make an impression.

Kacy and Richard Grainger in the new Grainger Gallery space in Fyshwick. Photography: Roger Price.

To mark the occasion, Grainger Gallery on Geelong will present an exhibition of GW Bot, noting the leading Australian artist’s show was a perfect way to show off the bones and character of the now full-time gallery.

GW Bot has been practising as a full-time artist for more than 40 years and producing works as a printmaker, painter, sculptor and graphic artist. She has exhibited extensively nationally and internationally, holding over 60 solo exhibitions, including shows in Sydney, Canberra, Melbourne, Brisbane, London, Paris, New York and Los Angeles.

GW Bot is the name the artist chose as her exhibiting name based on Aboriginal totemic belief. With wombats prevalent in the area she lives, she settled on the earliest written reference to a wombat, which occurs in a French source where it is called ‘le grand Wam Bot’.

Her show will present “Regenerational Glyphs”, which focus on the shoots of growth and rebirth in the environment after fire.

Having been represented in the Know my Name exhibition at the National Gallery of Australia, 2021 and touring exhibition in 2024-25. her work was also included in the Australia exhibition, at the Royal Academy, London (2013). Out of Australia: prints and drawings from Sidney Nolan to Rover Thomas, British Museum, London (2011) and in The story of Australian printmaking 1803- 2005, National Gallery of Australia, Canberra (2007). Born in Quetta, Pakistan, of Australian parents, she studied art in London, Paris and Australia and graduated from the Australian National University in 1982.