Since opening in 2013, the gallery has set out to offer visitors and collectors the opportunity to experience a curated selection of the best emerging Australian artists alongside more established artists from around the world. By exhibiting works from artists with differing cultural backgrounds and traditions the gallery aims to create a cross cultural conversation that challenges both the artists and visitors to question their habitual beliefs and explore new territories. In presenting works that explore current social and political affairs we aim to encourage an ongoing dialogue around current global issues and debates.

Any advice for artists looking for representation?

The one most important factor before an artist sends any submission is RESEARCH.

They need to determine the galleries that will suit both them and their artworks. We recommend going to openings at different galleries in different suburbs to really have an understanding of the gallery’s direction and artists that they represent.

Each gallery will have it’s very own individual collector base and their artist choices will be guided by that. As well as attending openings their websites will give a good overview of artists and let you research past and upcoming exhibitions.

Check the gallery’s website and see what their submission criteria are, if not stated call or email, under no circumstances turn up at a gallery with your portfolio or a selection of work.

If they do have specific criteria make sure you follow them. The other big “no’s” for submissions are approaching gallery members during another artist’s exhibition or at art fairs.

Any exhibitions you are particularly excited about?

We are delighted to be holding an International Women’s Day exhibition for the first time next year. Full submission outline below:

Frida Kahlo had it – a defiance and confidence that made her the twentieth century’s first ‘selfie superstar’. Georgia O’Keeffe had it – a brazen and innovative palette that confirmed her as the ‘Mother of American Modernism’. Tracy Emin has it – her frank and provocative art exposing an inventory of unconventional womanhood. The ‘it’ is boldness – a determination to speak, without fear or fancy, of the power of the female voice in public discourse.

In celebration of the dynamism and influence of this conversation, .M Contemporary announces the inaugural Heroine Exhibition, to take place in Sydney from March 8th to 24th, coinciding with International Women’s Day 2019. The Exhibition brings together emerging and established Australian artists with a series of renowned international names, each a daring and adventurous identity in women’s art.

.M Contemporary is inviting entries from a small group of selected local artists whose work embodies the social, cultural and political ethos of the heroine – works that are brave, compelling and vocal. The pieces should capture the collective female spirit and be created expressly for the Exhibition, rather than works that sit within an existing series. From sculpture, installation and textiles, to photography, canvas and digital art, Heroine will centre on a collective and inclusive message of celebration.

In selecting artists for Heroine, we ask you to be fearless and ingenious, avant-garde and experimental in the work you create for the show. Working with the theme of boldness, the motivation is to liberate through style, technique and attitude. The theme presumes no definitive medium, concept or state of mind. Instead, boldness should take the form of a feeling, an excitability, a refusal to be constrained and perhaps, in the true spirit of contemporary art, an invitation to be revolutionary.