Front Room

Two Corban Estate Arts Centre based artists work around themes of entertainment and boredom for the lady of the house. The Front Room celebrates the Victorian parlour, once the lady of the house’s domain, a place for receiving guests, practicing genteel hobbies, and performing femininity within strict social codes. This exhibition reclaims this space by revisiting the front rooms layered history. The works here honour women’s overlooked labour, while redefining their space as one of freedom, imagination, and belonging.

This exhibition is supported by Auckland Arts Festival 2026.

Image: Detail of Gypsy(2025) Gillian Appleby

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About the artists

Gillian Appleby is an artist who predominantly works with the figure in oil. Appleby uses everyday photographic media as the starting point in her works, but often the paint takes over, and this means that the material can dictates the final work. Over the painting and sketching process, Appleby’s works blend fiction and reality as she seeks to create tensions between illustrative and material investigations around the figure. 
Appleby lived in the UK where she studied in London at the now Central Saint Martins College of Art and Design. Appleby holds a Bachelor of Art and Design from the Eastern Institute of Technology (EIT), Hawkes Bay, and currently lives and works in Tamaki Makaurau, Auckland. She has a studio at Corbans Arts Estate in Henderson. 
She has exhibited nationally in Napier, Hastings and Auckland, and her work has exhibited several times in the Molly Morpeth Canaday Awards (2015, 2017, 2019). 
Appleby currently exhibits at Tennyson Gallery in Napier and The Upstairs Gallery in Titirangi. 

www.gappleby.co.nz

A local to Waitākere, Kelly Reichardt is a multi-disciplinary artist who predominantly works in photography, water-colour and mixed media in her practice. A survivor of both recent and historic trauma resulting in C-PTSD, Reichardt uses artistic expression to make sense of her emotions and inner dialogue. A strong realism permeates her work and themes of the female form, nature, and beauty are regularly featured. Reichardt holds a Diploma in Art and Creativity (Hons) from the Learning Connexion (Wellington) and was the recipient of the Oriel Hoskin Scholarship (2017-19).

www.kellyreichardt.co.nz

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Opening Preview
Friday 27 February, 6-8pm

Victorian Collage Workshop & Artist Kōrero
Saturday 7 March, 10.30am-12.30pm