By Callum Ludwig
A Warburton photographer is featuring in a mass art expo in Port Melbourne this week.
Kate Baker is one of over 100 independent artists displaying works in The Other Art Fair, set to showcase in The Timber Yard in Port Melbourne from Thursday 30 January to Sunday 2 February.
Ms Baker said featuring among over 100 independent artists is one of the most exciting things about the opportunity for her.
“It’s an opportunity for independent artists to be able to put their work out there into the public in a way that is harder or can sometimes be challenging, galleries have traditionally been the way to show your work and galleries are really fantastic, however, they’re often a pre-arranged, set body of work and have to be one or even two years ahead of time,” she said.
“Galleries will have the audience that they have for that gallery, but it’s not necessarily the same as having 10,000 people come to see your work, which is effectively what happens with the Other Art Fair, which they’ll maybe have 10,000 people who visit the fair over the four days,”
“That’s a huge opportunity for me as an artist to be able to see the public directly interact with my work, one of the biggest things that I was keen to see is how people do respond, whether they were attracted to the work, whether they’re wanting to ask questions, having the opportunity to have those conversations is not something that you generally get to do.”
It is Ms Baker’s second time featuring in The Other Art Fair, having exhibited at the same expo when it was in Sydney in October 2024.
Ms Baker said she is just looking for ways to expose her work to a broader audience.
“The Other Art Fair attracts not only art lovers but also curators and gallerists and other people who are interested in art, I went to Sydney and the good thing about that is I was actually introduced to and made some really good contacts there,” she said.
“That may have resulted in me potentially being part of the Sydney Contemporary Art Fair this year, I have also been offered an exhibition in Sydney that will happen this year in April and I also had a gallery ask me to come in and see them and potentially present my work,”
“As well as selling some work, I had other opportunities open up as a result of being there and of course, I got to meet a bunch of other artists which was a really interesting and supportive thing.”
Anyone interested in attending The Other Art Fair can visit the website to book tickets at theotherartfair.com/melbourne/.
Anyone interested in Kate Baker and her work can visit her website at katejbaker.com/.
Ms Baker said she hopes that people who visit the fair experience art in a new way.
“I hope that they see work they maybe normally wouldn’t have seen, and that they’re able to broaden their appreciation of art and for anybody who is an emerging artist or an aspiring artist, that they see that there are 100 different artists and different ways of engaging and showing their work,”
“It’s an opportunity for people who are interested in an artistic practice to go and talk to artists directly and that’s something you don’t always get to do, even in a gallery, you often don’t actually get to talk to the artist and here you have four days to do that.”
