Charles Nodrum Gallery

Charles Nodrum Gallery Charles Nodrum Gallery presents regularly changing solo and group exhibitions of modern and contemporary Aus art with a strong focus on 1960s abstraction.

Parking: 2 Hour in surrounding streets (Church St, Abinger St, Hodgson Terrace, Coles)

Charles Nodrum is a qualified valuer for all periods of Australian art with the Federal Government Cultural Gifts Scheme. The gallery provides advice on collection management, valuations, conservation, restoration, framing and installation. The gallery also deals extensively on the secondary market – both selli

ng work on consignment for clients and dealing on its own account. Prior to opening the gallery in 1984, Charles Nodrum worked at the Joseph Brown Gallery (1971-5), managed Christie's Melbourne office (1975-8), and was a principal researcher for Alan McCulloch's Encyclopedia of Australian Art (1984 edition). Gallery Manager Kate Nodrum is full time.

JONAS BALSAITIS: Selected Works 1968-20012 - 23 MayPlease join us and the artist for the opening celebration on Saturday...
23/04/2026

JONAS BALSAITIS: Selected Works 1968-2001
2 - 23 May
Please join us and the artist for the opening celebration on Saturday 2 May, 3-5pm

This exhibition is composed of works belonging to the artist – and most of them were included in his highly impressive retrospective exhibition titled Analogue, held in Canberra at the Australian National University’s Drill Hall Gallery in 2025 and curated by Drill Hall Gallery curator, Oscar Capezio.

Copies of the extensive exhibition catalogue are now available, making an important addition to that published for his retrospective exhibition Through the surface: Jonas Balsaitis paintings 1968-1992, held at Monash University Gallery in 1994 and guest curated by author and academic Carolyn Barnes.

This exhibition covers much, but by no means all, of the varied work in the Canberra show and will give Melbourne visitors the opportunity to see them on the wall, not just on the page. This includes a suite of works not seen before – his Palette Paintings, produced in 1994. It is characteristic of the artist to think laterally in choosing to paint on Coreflute, a lightweight, durable, corrugated plastic sheeting usually associated with more practical uses such as signage.

Also on view during this exhibition will be the artist’s 1977 film Space Time Structures. C.N.

Our thanks to Oscar Capezia and Giles Fielke for their assistance on this show.

PAUL PARTOS: on Paper and CanvasPlease join us for the opening celebration on Saturday 28 February, 3-5pmThis exhibition...
25/02/2026

PAUL PARTOS: on Paper and Canvas
Please join us for the opening celebration on
Saturday 28 February, 3-5pm

This exhibition came about from an otherwise unremarkable visit to the Partos Estate studio to collect some paintings we'd had an enquiry about via our website. As usual, Merrilyn Partos's warm greetings preceded a walk through the stunning Edwardian house in Essendon (which she and Paul bought directly from the original owners in the 1970s) out to the purpose-built studio, now storage, in the back garden. Before I left, Merrilyn wanted to show me some of Paul’s "paintings on paper" as she called them, stored in the plan chests, as she liked the idea of doing a works on paper exhibition. We proceeded to photograph every single one, and then arranged another visit to photograph all the remaining paintings on canvas, and then undertook the painstaking task of selecting the modest number of works presented here.

In 2016, our previous gallery manager Rebecca Guest mounted a beautiful exhibition of Paul's 1980s etchings, and his previous representing galleries Garry Anderson, Realities, and Christine Abrahams all had exhibitions of his works on paper, but these “paintings on paper” are a first for us. They all date from the 1980s and 90s, well into Paul’s period of “paintings within paintings” (as he titled his 1976 Pinacotheca exhibition). The interplay between “the centre” and “the edge” of the canvas or ground proved an abundantly fertile zone of enquiry for him for the rest of his life. And from within this relatively narrow compositional parameter flowed hundreds of ‘essays’ in adjusting the equation between the two elements: whether it was a small “centre” filled with high key impasto versus a wide and minimal “edge”; or a larger “centre” with a thinner border; or the “centre” thrown off-square, the differences of effect within the similarity of approach never cease to satisfy the viewer. It’s a similar phenomenon to the later works of George Johnson (1926 - 2021), Trevor Vickers (b.1943) or Robert Hunter (1947 - 2014).

Not sure what I was going to write for this introduction, I mined our Partos archive. Reading through his past exhibition catalogues and newspaper crits, it's clear that a major institutional retrospective that brought together all aspects of Partos' work would be phenomenal. From his impasto expressionist paintings with which he blew onto the Melbourne art scene in the mid-60s, to his hard-edge shaped paintings exhibited in The Field, to his conceptual and installation work made in New York at the turn of the decade, to his minimal paintings on canvas and aluminium of the early 1970s employing elastic, string and Letraset, to his etchings of the 1980s, and of course his “paintings within paintings” for which he arguably remains best known. The range and quality is undoubtedly there, as is the exhibition pedigree and critical acclaim, the influence of international art history and his relevance to local art history. As we continue to campaign and encourage such a show, I think it’s time for us in the meantime to mount as best a mini-survey as we can from the artist's studio, within the spatial and business constraints of a commercial gallery. So: watch this space. But for now, enjoy this small taste of Paul's refined touch and playful palette.
Kate Nodrum, 2026

Fully illustrated exhibition catalogue online now: https://www.charlesnodrumgallery.com.au/exhibitions/paul-partos-on-paper/

28 Feb - 21 Mar

The gallery will close for the summer break from Saturday 13 December 2025.We’ll be working behind the scenes, however, ...
10/12/2025

The gallery will close for the summer break from Saturday 13 December 2025.

We’ll be working behind the scenes, however, so available for visits by appointment - with much of Abstraction 25 remaining on the walls.

Send us an email or leave us a message on +61 (3) 9427 0140 and we’ll get back to you as soon as we can.

Best wishes from all of us at the Charles Nodrum Gallery, and have a safe and restful summer break.

Charles, Kate, Kirsten & Anna (& Pickle!)

We’ll launch into 2026 with an exhibition of Lesley Dumbrell’s work at the Melbourne Art Fair (19 - 22 February 2026)

Followed by an exhibition of paintings and works on paper from the Paul Partos Estate (28 February - 21 March 2026)

In 2026 our new opening hours will be
Wednesday - Saturday, 11am - 5pm
and by appointment

GODFREY MILLER: Final Paintings from the Estate • continues till Saturday 11 OctoberI had handled numerous works by Godf...
02/10/2025

GODFREY MILLER: Final Paintings from the Estate • continues till Saturday 11 October

I had handled numerous works by Godfrey Miller through the 1980s and 90s, but the main step up occurred with the 2004 exhibition which featured several major works from the John Henshaw Collection (Henshaw being Miller’s executor and beneficiary). The centrepiece hung in my office for weeks before the show and seemed to gather strength and self-assurance by the day.

Although he claimed to have finished less than a hundred paintings in his lifetime, Godfrey Miller left a large number of unfinished works - most, if not all, of which bear the mark of the master. Indeed many collectors prefer the unfinished works as having a lighter touch and a lower level of intensity which, somewhat paradoxically, does not seem to diminish their numinous presence. If anything, the reverse can occur and the eye and mind are tempted to finish the work for themselves. As such, they can be seen not as making statements but as asking questions. The works in this exhibition are all such examples. They remain discretely riveting, mysteriously timeless. They are however the last remaining paintings in the Estate.

Rest assured, the Estate holds many more of Miller’s figure drawings, a selection of which are included in this exhibition.

Concerning presentation of the paintings, we have elected to mount many of the works on wood panels, based on the fact that the artist himself would tack his canvases to a board while working on them, only having them stretched and framed on completion. Prices, we hope, are tempting, and these works can find homes with Miller enthusiasts for whom the major finished paintings are out of reach.

My final thought: the retrospective exhibition held at the Art Gallery of New South Wales in 1994 was excellent, and I can’t help but feel the time is approaching for another! • Charles Nodrum

Please visit our website for the fully illustrated and priced catalogue: https://www.charlesnodrumgallery.com.au/exhibitions/godfrey-miller/

Paddington Houses and Trees (‘JH255’)
Still Life (‘JH191’)
Seated V, pencil on paper, 38 x 27cm

ANN THOMSON: The Last 25 Years • conitnues till Saturday 11 OctoberFor Ann Thomson the last few years have been busy: a ...
02/10/2025

ANN THOMSON: The Last 25 Years • conitnues till Saturday 11 October

For Ann Thomson the last few years have been busy: a retrospective exhibition curated by Terence Maloon for the SH Ervin Gallery in Sydney which toured to Orange Regional Gallery; solo exhibitions at Defiance Gallery and Clayton Utz in Sydney, Mike Mitchell Gallery in Brisbane, John Messum in London (and forthcoming in New York); Artsy featuring her alongside Louise Bourgeois in “9 Overlooked Women Artists in Their Nineties”; Podcasts (Art W**k episode 220); and gracing the cover of Artist Profile Magazine. Amongst all this, she’s still found the time and energy to swim almost every morning at her local and loved Bronte beach.

They say growing old is not for the faint hearted. If this is what 90 looks like, then bring it on!

This exhibition is a selection of paintings from Ann’s studio dating back a quarter century – virtually as long as she’s shown with the Charles Nodrum Gallery, her first show being in 2001 of recent painting and sculpture. Included are works painted in France (Treble, 2014) and Hong Kong (Sun’s Force, 2017), as well as those painted closer to home (all of the most recent work).

Read Kate Nodrum's full exhibition essay and view the fully illustrated and priced catalogue online now: https://www.charlesnodrumgallery.com.au/exhibitions/ann-thomson-5/

Jetty, 2024, acrylic on linen, 107 x 71 cm
Sun’s Force, 2017, acrylic andtarred paper on linen, 122 x 91.5 cm
Split, 2003, oil on linen, 122 x 91cm

LOUISE FORTHUN: Sculpture · PaintingPlease join us for the opening celebration on Tuesday 21st October, 5-7pm •In her ca...
02/10/2025

LOUISE FORTHUN: Sculpture · Painting
Please join us for the opening celebration on Tuesday 21st October, 5-7pm •

In her catalogue introduction FORTHUN FAVOURS THE BRAVE writer, broadcaster and producer of audio documentaries on the arts FIONA GRUBER writes:

The most striking aspect of Louise Forthun’s work in this exhibition is its intense relationship with texture. This texture is found in her free-standing crumpled bronzes and paper pieces, in her urgent, dragged and spattered oils from the early 2000s, and in her current explorations using synthetic polymer. These latter works, on paper and canvas, are from 2025, and their pointy, furrowed, and slabby surfaces combine two radically opposite perspectives; the tectonic view frame gained by vast distance and the rugged detail of very close; a satellite looking down on a planet, combined with the clarity of a surface under a microscope.

Colour comes second but it’s the other actor in the drama, a call and response to the surface. There are works in single colours, heavy blues and blacks, and clotting reds that are carried through in works more than 20 years apart. In these works, both in the early 2000s and on more recent canvases, there’s an urgency in the paint’s application, with the vigour of broad brushstrokes, the drag of a palette knife or the spurt of a spray gun, letting the paint skim the surface like toile, or saturate it with a sudden pulse across the rugged white expanse.

Continue reading Fiona's introduction and view the fully illustrated and priced catalogue of works on our website: https://www.charlesnodrumgallery.com.au/exhibitions/louise-forthun/

Images by Christian Capurro
Flamenco, 2024, patinated bronze, 20 x 15.5 x 8 cm
Poem, 2025, synthetic polymer on linen, 90 x 75cm
Sainte Chapelle, 2002, oil on linen, 190 x 150cm
Mauve + Green, 2021, Synthetic polymer on paper framed in an acrylic showcase, 28 x 20 cm

SADIE CHANDLER — HOUSE RULES Welcome to Sadie Chandler — House Rules, a book that chronicles the life and work of Austra...
01/07/2025

SADIE CHANDLER — HOUSE RULES

Welcome to Sadie Chandler — House Rules, a book that chronicles the life and work of Australian artist Sadie Chandler.

Arranged as an instruction manual, it unfolds across 13 chapters — each a rule that shapes Chandler’s approach to art and life.

This 192-page guidebook embraces the ridiculous and reflects on the complexities of understanding (and misunderstanding) the artist’s interests and influences.

Featuring images of over 100 paintings, sculptures and wallpaper works, personal anecdotes, and an essay by Eve Sullivan, Sadie Chandler — House Rules reveals the code of Chandler’s practice.

Readers are invited to stay, play, and follow the rules.

Buy a copy here: https://sadiechandler.com/SADIE-CHANDLER-HOUSE-RULES

Exhibition continues at Charles Nodrum Gallery till 19 July: https://www.charlesnodrumgallery.com.au/exhibitions/sadie-chandler-house-rules/

LYNNE BOYD: LIMINALPlease join us for the Book Launch & Exhibition Celebration onThursday 5 June, 5-7pmWith words from G...
22/05/2025

LYNNE BOYD: LIMINAL

Please join us for the Book Launch & Exhibition Celebration on
Thursday 5 June, 5-7pm
With words from Geoffrey Edwards, curator, arts writer, lecturer and former Director of Geelong Art Gallery

Exhibition dates: 31 May - 21 June

Published by Index Press and edited by Sheridan Palmer, this compelling and lavishly illustrated overview of Lynne Boyd’s life and art includes discursive and insightful essays by Tim Bass, Vivien Gaston, Rosalind Hollinrake, Leah Kaminsky, Kate and Charles Nodrum and Jason Smith.

The Australian artist Lynne Boyd (1953–2022) was known for her exquisite and haunting paintings and prints of solitary figures and fleeting moments and her romantic abstraction of the liminal and the oceanic. Atmospheric hazes, the psychology of distance, and the dynamics of spatiality were essential to her oeuvre. Like few other artists of her time and place, Boyd was able to capture what art historian Rosalind Hollinrake calls the “material presence of the immaterial.”

Boyd began as a self-taught landscape artist in the mid-1970s and developed her uncanny representation of boats, bridges and misty seascapes of Port Phillip Bay during the 1980s. Peter Booth considered her works from this period among the best to emerge from the Victorian College of the Arts, and over the next three-and-a-half decades she obtained a beauty and poetic depth in artworks depicting the irreducible elements of land, sea, and sky. In this respect her work has affinities with the unfathomable qualities that we associate with the Australian modernist Clarice Beckett, the surreal expressionist Georgia O’Keefe, and the quiet minimalism of Agnes Martin.

Index Press is a leading independent publishing house based in Narrm/Melbourne, Australia, specialising in art history, cultural criticism, philosophy, and theory. Presenting original scholarship from art historians and theorists of all specialisations, the press treats the past with the same immediacy as the present.

Yvonne Audette9-26 AprilPlease join us for an opening celebration with the artist on Wednesday 9 April, 5-7pmwith remark...
27/03/2025

Yvonne Audette
9-26 April
Please join us for an opening celebration with the artist on Wednesday 9 April, 5-7pm
with remarks from Dr Gerard Vaughan, art historian and curator, former director of the National Gallery of Victoria (1999-2012) and of the National Gallery of Australia (2014-2018)

"Yvonne Audetteis one of very few Australian-born artists to have lived, worked and exhibited amidst the American and European avant-garde period of the 1950s and 60s. Her lyrical and layered canvases – composed using a personal language of marks and symbols inspired by her urban and natural surrounds as well as music – have made her one of the country’s most renowned abstractionists." ... Read the full exhibition introduction by Kirsten Rann, and view the fully illustrated catalogue, on our website: https://www.charlesnodrumgallery.com.au/exhibitions/yvonne-audette/

Address

267 Church Street
Richmond, VIC
3121

Opening Hours

Tuesday 11am - 5pm
Wednesday 11am - 5pm
Thursday 11am - 5pm
Friday 11am - 5pm
Saturday 11am - 5pm

Telephone

+61394270140

Website

Alerts

Be the first to know and let us send you an email when Charles Nodrum Gallery posts news and promotions. Your email address will not be used for any other purpose, and you can unsubscribe at any time.

Shortcuts

Share

Category