It’s been a long journey for Uplands Gallery from its original incarnation next to a sex club in Chinatown, to its new premises in Commercial Road and in the commercial gallery network. It was established by Jarrod Rawlins and the late Blair Trethowan in 2001. They were straight out of art-school and had little capital, but their artists (including the DAMP collective, David Noonan and Jon Campbell) and their resourcefulness (instead of hiring a stall at the Melbourne Art Fair, they kidnapped collectors in a hired limousine) soon gained the art public’s attention. However, the tragic passing of Trethowan, which may have caused the gallery to close, instead precipitated a change of tone: Uplands moved to a large new space in Prahran and Rawlin’s wife Tara became co-Director.

Today, Uplands is known for its presentation of intellectually challenging, significant contemporary art from Australia and the region. They represent Filipino Manuel Ocampo, whose work is held by the Whitney Museum, New York, and The Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles. The exhibition program features solo exhibitions by artists including Matthew Griffin and Tony Garifalakis, as well as Jarrod Rawlins curated-group exhibitions such as the recent Problem Solving: Espress Yourself, focussed on a Kain Picken and Rob McKenzie sculpture, Espress Yourself (Briony), of a coffee pot on a rug on a plinth on a coffee table. It typified Rawlins’ ‘non-didactic’ approach to curating, which continues the humour and innovation of the earliest incarnations of Uplands.