Lifestyle & Entertainment
19 March, 2026
Town Hall Hotel hosts Easter art pop-up
TWO Stawell artists will transform part of one of the town’s historic buildings into an unexpected gallery this Easter, opening the Town Hall Hotel’s former dining room for a pop-up art exhibition during the Stawell Gift weekend.
Margie Glover and Charrelle Nicholson are preparing to showcase a collection of colourful, one-off artworks in the space — a room currently undergoing a quiet transformation of its own.
While details of the broader changes to the hotel will be revealed in due course, the artists said the exhibition offers a chance to bring art into the heart of town just as thousands of visitors arrive for the iconic Easter footrace.
“We are excited because it’s something different,” Ms Nicholson said as the pair prepared the room for the display.
The exhibition, titled Wow Art, centres largely on a striking style known as “flow art” — an abstract technique where paint is poured, blown, tilted and manipulated across a canvas to create spontaneous patterns and forms.
For Ms Glover, the unpredictable nature of the technique is part of its appeal.
“The only choice you make yourself is the size of the canvas and the colour palette,” she said.
“After that, you tip it, spin it — you can even throw rocks at it if you want to. When it comes out, you get the best surprise, because you don’t know how it’s going to turn out.”
Because of that process, every piece becomes completely unique.
“You can never get the same one again,” Ms Glover said. “They’re all one-offs.”
Ms Nicholson said the works often reveal different shapes or images depending on who is looking at them.
“With a landscape, you see the mountains, the trees and the lake,” she said.
“But with these, the more you look at them, the more you see. One person might see a fish, someone else might see faces. Everybody sees something different.”
Alongside the abstract works, the exhibition will also include a small selection of Ms Nicholson’s traditional landscape paintings, offering visitors a contrast between representational and abstract styles.
The project also reflects a long-standing personal connection between the two artists.
“We’ve known each other a very long time,” Ms Glover said. “And as we’ve put this together, it’s just clicked.”
Both women also have strong family ties to painting, with Ms Nicholson noting she originally learned from Ms Glover’s mother.
The pop-up exhibition is planned to run from 10am to 4pm on Saturday and Sunday of the Easter weekend, with opening hours for Friday and Monday still to be confirmed.
With Stawell expecting large crowds for the Gift carnival, the artists hope visitors — as well as locals — will wander in to explore the colourful works.
“We called it Wow Art because that’s what people say when they see it,” Ms Nicholson said.
“And even we still say ‘wow’ when we look at them.”
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