Beinart Gallery (Melbourne, Australia) is dedicated to showcasing figurative artworks with surreal and imaginative themes. We seek to bring the work of internationally renowned artists to Australia while highlighting emerging Australian artists, thus serving both our local art community and the international art community at large. Our gallery represents a movement of highly skilled figurative artists who have resisted global art trends and remained true to their artistic visions. Beinart Gallery is owned and directed by Jon Beinart. The gallery was established in 2016, but our role within this international movement spans almost two decades through publishing, curating, promoting and educating.

Over the years, we have been honoured to bring the works of numerous renowned international artists to Australia. Our space has been graced by the impossibly intricate surrealist drawings of Miles Johnston, the gravity-defying architectural paintings of Cinta Vidal, the fierce, tender heroines of Jana Brike’s paintings and the evocative ceramic creatures of Erika Sanada. We have hosted solo exhibitions for celebrated Australian artists such as Shaun Tan, while providing greater exposure for talented emerging artists such as Beau White and Sam Yong.

While Beinart Gallery opened its doors in March 2016, our beginnings trace more than a decade earlier. In 2003 Jon launched the Beinart Collective, an online gallery featuring his own artwork as well as that of a number of like-minded Australian artists with a mutual affinity for highly detailed works with strange subject matter. Soon the Collective expanded to include international artists from a range of related art movements, including Fantastic Realism, Pop Surrealism, Lowbrow, Dark Art and Magical Realism. At its most active point the Collective hosted online galleries for over 600 artists and attracted a huge number of monthly website visitors. The website included artist interviews, exhibition previews and articles, as well as a lively forum in which the artists connected, forming a community. The website served not only artists but also their fans and collectors, who discovered new artists as well as new works by familiar artists. Thus, the Collective was a fabulous resource for anyone interested in contemporary surrealism.

Alongside running the Collective website, Jon established Beinart Publishing in 2007. Its first release was Metamorphosis, a compilation of works by 50 figurative artists with surreal themes. This book’s success led to publication of Metamorphosis 2 in 2008. Following these published works were a series of monographs devoted to the life and works of renowned artists such as Laurie Lipton, Kris Kuksi and Chet Zar. The publishing arm of Beinart released its final publication in 2012.

The success of the Beinart Collective as an online resource and art community led, perhaps inevitably, to group exhibitions in brick-and-mortar galleries. After curating smaller group shows in Australia for a number of years, Jon curated his first international group exhibition in 2010. In this exhibition and others that followed, Jon established and continued the practice of featuring emerging artists alongside their better-known peers, helping increase the visibility of newer artists and exposing collectors to a greater variety of works.

While the Collective had a reach doubtless far beyond what Jon had originally imagined, he found another vision forming in front of him: that of his own brick-and-mortar gallery in Australia. With the support of the community the Collective had fostered, Jon was able to launch Beinart Gallery, a curated space devoted to masterful figurative artists who explore imaginative themes in their work, promoting Australian artists as well as international ones.

Beinart Gallery is more than a physical space. Our gallery continues the former Collective’s efforts to foster community within the art world, to expose people to new art and to educate. Beinart Gallery maintains a strong Web presence, including artist interviews and articles aimed at serving as a resource for artists. It is hoped that by promoting these works and getting them out into the world, we will help light the imaginations of all who get to see them.

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