Wooby Lane Gallery

A Contemporary Gallery In Hobart's Historic Waterfront

Wooby Lane Gallery is tucked away in Salamanca Place within the Salamanca Art Centre, a renovated 1800s sandstone building that sits in Battery Point, one of Hobart's oldest neighbourhoods. The gallery opened its doors in June 2021 and has carved out a solid reputation for showing work by artists from Tasmania, Australia, and New Zealand. There's something that just works about having contemporary pieces displayed in a heritage stone building right on the waterfront. Old and new push against each other in a pretty compelling way.

The place is run by Laurie Young and Christian Arnold, a married couple who are serious glass artists themselves, working together at Australian Art Glass. That hands-on ownership makes a real difference. You're not just walking into a shop. You're interacting with people who actually understand the craft and have their fingers on the pulse of what's happening in the creative community right across the region.

Glass Art at the Forefront, with Diverse Creative Disciplines

Glass art is what the gallery is known for, running the full gamut from practical tableware to large sculptural pieces made by serious artists. That said, it's far from the only thing on offer. You'll spot watercolours and paintings in other mediums, ceramics, woodwork, leather goods, jewellery, and mixed-media work dotted throughout the space. The mix means you're likely to find something that speaks to you, whether your taste runs to abstract, realist, impressionist, or artists pushing traditional materials in new directions.

The gallery works with over 50 artists from across Tasmania, Australia, and New Zealand, all practising in different disciplines. You'll see work by established names alongside work by up-and-coming artists, many of them based locally. Everything hanging on the walls or sitting on the shelves is an original piece, stamped with the maker's hand. That's the real appeal here: you're looking at one-off objects instead of copies, and getting to know the actual artists and creative communities doing the work in the region.

A Working Gallery Where Artists and Collectors Connect

Wooby Lane Gallery is run by practising glass artists rather than suit-wearing curators, which changes everything about how it feels to walk through the place. You can actually talk to the people making the work, ask them about their process, and find out why they made something the way they did. There's no velvet rope between you and the art. That kind of access matters because it turns a gallery visit into a proper conversation instead of just another transaction.

The work is organised by medium - glass, jewellery, ceramics, painting and the like - so you can hunt down exactly what you're after. But you can also just wander and stumble across combinations you wouldn't have found otherwise. It's straightforward sorting that doesn't pretend one form of art matters more than another.

Visiting Wooby Lane Gallery in Hobart's Arts Precinct

Wooby Lane Gallery is located at 77 Salamanca Place, Hobart, TAS 7000. The gallery opens Tuesday to Sunday, 10:00 am to 5:00 pm. It sits in the thick of Salamanca, where you've got the markets, cafes, heritage buildings, and plenty of other galleries nearby. The location makes it an easy call to drop by while you're checking out what Hobart's art scene has to offer.

{"text":"To find out about artists, available work, or commissions, ring the gallery on 0479 040 699 or shoot an email to woobylane@gmail.com. They're pretty active on Instagram and Facebook too, if you want to keep tabs on new exhibitions and what's coming up. The folks running the place are welcoming, and you'll feel right at home in one of Hobart's most distinctive neighbourhoods while checking out quality Tasmanian and Australian contemporary art."}.