The Araluen Arts Centre will be extending its weekend operating hours by opening its doors an hour earlier at 10am from this weekend.

The change of hours is due to the increased numbers of visitors to the Precinct due to the success of Yaye’s cafe.

The Araluen Arts Centre is open 7 days a week (including public holidays) from 10am until 4pm, which will be welcome news to art enthusiasts.

The Araluen Arts Centre is only closed on Good Friday and for two weeks over Christmas.

Araluen Cultural Precinct Director Dr Mark Crees said he was delighted to provide the public with an extra hour on both Saturday and Sunday to visit the galleries and to see what was currently on show.

Visitors are also encouraged to enjoy a coffee or a meal at the new Yaye’s Café and enjoy the stunning Clifford Possum mural in the courtyard.  

The café is located between the Araluen Arts Centre and Central Craft and is open from 8am on weekends also. 

“The Araluen Arts Centre will be hosting the annual Alice Springs Beanie Festival exhibition from 24 June until 17 July, and we hope the extra hour will give locals and visitors a chance to see some of the stunning creations that are still filling the Arts Centre twenty years on,” Dr Crees said.

The Araluen Galleries are also excited to be hosting two significant exhibitions in the coming weeks:

·         Local Alice Springs artist Jennifer Taylor’s Eye to Eye, which brings together paintings from New Zealand, her birthplace and childhood home, and Central Australia, her chosen home; and

·         The touring exhibition Unfinished Business, which showcases stories from Australian Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander People with Disabilities by photographer Belinda Mason. This exhibition was launched at the Palais des Nations in Geneva and part of Australia’s official contribution to the United Nations 2014 World Conference on Indigenous Persons.

Further information: Please contact Dr Mark Crees 0439 992 384