Art on Cairncross

Jane Caraffi grew up sur­rounded by books on art his­tory and recalls being “dragged” around Lon­don gal­leries while her school friends were off on excit­ing holidays.

It was only much later, on the other side of the world, that she came to fully share her father’s pas­sion for art and to open her own gallery, Art on Cairn­cross, in the south Queens­land town of Maleny.

Jane describes her ini­tial move to the area as “pure hap­pen­stance”. Hav­ing trained as a nurse, she began trav­el­ling and reached Queens­land in 1993. When she set­tled in Maleny, art sup­planted nurs­ing as a pre­ferred occu­pa­tion and she found her­self run­ning a gallery.

A shared inter­est in pho­tog­ra­phy intro­duced her to Tony Gill, a for­mer hos­pi­tal­ity worker who had also turned to gallery man­age­ment in nearby Montville. The shared inter­ests blos­somed into romance and mar­riage — and when the oppor­tu­nity arose to buy their new premises and com­bine forces, the deci­sion was sim­ple. Maleny’s phys­i­cal attrac­tions would have played a part.

Set in lush, trop­i­cal bush­land on the Black­all Range, the lit­tle town has breath­tak­ing views over­look­ing the hin­ter­land to the Sun­shine Coast. “Within 45 min­utes, we can be sip­ping lattes in Noosa’s Hast­ings Street,” says Tony, then adds that the big-city attrac­tions of Bris­bane are a mere 90 min­utes drive south.

But the traf­fic is far from one way, with many vis­i­tors stop­ping at Maleny. Two pop­u­lar restau­rants flank Art on Cairn­cross, and Jane and Tony have noticed that after a leisurely lunch, few tourists can resist pop­ping in. Some even walk away with a paint­ing — “It’s amaz­ing what a cou­ple of glasses of chardon­nay can do,” says Tony with a laugh.

The cou­ple are pas­sion­ate about the work they present and have devel­oped strong rela­tion­ships with its cre­ators. The gallery has a sta­ble of around 50 artists, many of whom live in the area. Nan Pater­son is their doyenne, still — at 86 — pro­duc­ing exquis­ite oils and por­traits to rival the two paint­ings she has hang­ing in the National Library of Australia.

Ceram­i­cist Johanna de Maine is another local who has achieved national and inter­na­tional acco­lades, with one of her pieces being pre­sented to Denmark’s Prince Fred­erik and Princess Mary as a wed­ding gift.

Aspir­ing to an inter­na­tional audi­ence might have been futile in days gone by for a small regional Aus­tralian gallery. But as the inter­net shrinks the globe to a com­puter screen win­dow, Art on Cairn­cross has built an impres­sive web­site that can con­nect with inter­na­tional buyers.

As Jane says, “The art pro­duced in Aus­tralia is unique — there’s an incred­i­ble diver­sity of colour and clar­ity of light one doesn’t see in paint­ings any­where else in the world.”

Art on Cairn­cross is at 3 Panorama Place, Cairn­cross Cor­ner, Maleny, Queensland.

Tele­phone (07) 5429 6404 or visit Art on Cairn­cross