Origins of the Gallery

Lovell Gallery was established by Nadeen Lovell as Diversion Gallery, March 1998 , in the remote Kimberley town of Kununurra. The town is situated near the Ord R. where the Diversion Dam was built in the 1960’s for an irrigated farming scheme. Originally the gallery was housed in a small cottage in a cool garden setting where it stayed for the first six years.
Exploring for inspiration during the off season, in the early days of the gallery.
Nadeen spent her early years on a dairy farm, a little to the north west of her birthplace, what then was the big country town of Brisbane. She first came to the Kimberley in 1989 with a group of artists on a three week painting trip, not long after furthering her art studies in Sydney. While she had been exhibiting solo in Brisbane and Sydney as well as in some mixed country exhibitions for many years, she had, in the mid eighties decided to become more professional and so spent four years at the famous Julian Ashton School of Art, in Sydney, followed by a year of painting weekly with Richard Rossi Ashton, her mentor.
After the Kimberley adventure, city life seemed jaded. Nadeen made a tree change decision and buying a camper van, took a year off work, to paint while travelling solo across Australia. This included another visit to the Kimberley. Finding the Kimberley inspired her like no other place she had seen in Australia or overseas she made Kununurra in the East Kimberley her base from 1991. Taking on the arduous job as a 4WD tour guide, one season somehow turned into seven, as she gained valuable knowledge of the Kimberley region. Exhibitions of her work, painted in the off season were taken to the eastern states and trips to such places as the galleries of New York and the frozen beauty of Antarctica were added to her career highs.
The decision to open a gallery, particularly in such a remote town, was the result of a long held dream that the only way to display her work as she desired, was to give it a home of its own, in a region that provided never ending interest, for herself, other artists and the visitors who would become her patrons. She invited two other local artists, Rebecca Ellett ( of the pioneering Tully family ) and Kimberley Kohan, ( see her website ) to exhibit with her. Over the years quite a number of different artists came and went, all with a strong connection to the East Kimberley. Some stayed.
Six years later the business moved to a much larger, purpose built gallery which could house her 11 metre panorama painted in 1992. The number of exhibiting artists grew from the original three to between 12 and 15. The name changed to Lovell Gallery and such exhibitions as the many Art Appreciation Evenings and a variety of other events, were held in the gallery as it became a very popular venue. Nadeen and her artists continued to surprise the locals and visitors as the content and quality of the work just got better and better. The 11m. work was eventually succeeded by a 16 metre panorama Nadeen created in 2006-2008. ( see Bungles Panorama page ). Kimberley exhibitions from the gallery were taken to Melbourne and Perth, via road in the quiet seasons of 2001 and 2002 then Perth again in 2009
The 16 metre panorama in the making - Jan 2008	Ready for Perth - Feb 2009
In 2011 Nadeen realised that she eventually needs to return to full time painting and exhibiting to a wider audience. The task of creating and setting up exhibitions for 2013 is under way and 2012 looks like being a very busy year at Lovell Gallery.
A Boab Grove out the front of the gallery which attracts much attention from visitors. Self sown and germinated only since Nadeen stopped vehicles parking on the verge, there are now over 600 small trees growing below the parent tree which is about 70 years old.