By Tyler Wright
Kapi Art Space has experienced an outpouring of support after a stolen car ploughed through the community gallery on Saturday 13 August.
Together with other residents, a gallery worker decorated the property’s fence with material love hearts of various sizes; a surprise for Kapi Art Space managing director Heather Bradbury who cried when she arrived at the venue on Saturday 27 August.
“It’s really beautiful to see… I don’t think I’ve really experienced that feeling before after such a traumatic and challenging time,” Heather said.
“To come to the traumatic site and to see something really beautiful was quite a lovely experience, so I’m really overwhelmed by the support by the community.”
Kapi Art Space’s gallery was damaged on Saturday 13 August when the teen driver allegedly lost control of the vehicle, ploughing several metres into the building just after 3am.
It was the third time the building had been damaged by a car within five months, and a mere two months since the previous crash.
It’s estimated thousands of dollars worth of damage was done to local artists’ work.
“What we’re encouraging people to do if they want to support Kapi Art Space at the moment is to go online and have a look at the work, and see if they want to buy any and contact the artists,” Heather said.
“Go and have a look at their work, buy and support them because some of them did lose work, and it’s very hard to ensure artwork.”
Kapi Art Space began running classes once again in the building’s back room, with art students and community members alike able to come together in a communal space.
Heather is hopeful the gallery will return to its normal state early next year, but extensive work still needs to be completed.
“We might try and do something outside between now and Christmas, but we’re not sure,” she said.
“We’ll be sad to miss the tourist season, but we’ve still got a little community of artists and students, so we’re enjoying making the most of that and looking forward to a brand new front of our building before too long, which will be nice.”
To view the art available for sale, and to learn more about Kapi Art Space, visit https://www.kapiartspace.com/
You can even ‘honk for Kapi’ as you drive past 1282 Mount Dandenong Tourist Road, Kalorama.
