How to organize a duo art exhibition. Part 1 review of Let Colour Speak.
TL;DR:
Organizing your own art show involves concept development, goal setting, securing resources (including budget and space), presentation, promotion and community engagement.
Our duo show involved collaboration and partnership from start to finish, which enabled us to deliver a show beyond our imagination.
Have you wondered how to organise and hold your own art exhibition? Perhaps you’re an emerging artist, or even an established one, and you’re looking for ways to run a successful art show.
Or perhaps you’re an art lover and want a peek behind the scenes of how artists get their art out in the world.
Last month, my mum Jennie Bell and I finished our duo art exhibition called “Let Colour Speak”. It has been non-stop since but I wanted to take a moment to reflect on the show - not only to continue my own learning and development of my creative practice, but also to share insights in the chance it might be useful to others.
With that in mind, I would love to hear your thoughts on what I share below in the comments - let’s learn together.
This blog post is part 1 of 2. Part 1 reviews the steps mum and I took to organise our duo show in 2025. Part 2 identifies the key learnings and reflections, including how the show will inform my work moving forward.
The nuts and bolts
Our duo show ran 1-12 October in the Robina Art Gallery, adjacent to the Robina Library, for which we were present in the gallery every day. I submitted our show proposal to the Robina gallery managers in August 2024, who accepted it in November 2024 (much to our excitement).
Putting on a duo show together was a big project for us both, with its creation taking place over the year leading up. While mum and I have collaborated on paintings and workshops before, Let Colour Speak show was our first time creating an entire body of work and running all aspects of an exhibition together.
We created our paintings through a collaborative process that ‘let colour speak’ as a third voice in our conversations (read more here). We exhibited 29 paintings between us plus mum’s concertina which was a prompt in the community arts activity (see below). We also exhibited the 12 palettes that informed the works, grouping paintings with their related palette to prompt conversation about colour.
Grant support
I applied for and won a grant from the City of Gold Coast’s Arts Development Fund, which was an absolute blessing. Preparing the application during an intensely busy season was a challenge but when Council’s email arrived in June 2025 offering me the funding, my excitement and relief both rated a 11/10. I remain deeply grateful for the support I received for my application from Karleen Gwinner, Creatives Inc, Regional Arts Services Network and my local Councillor Nick Marshall.
The grant meant I could cover costs required to professionally show my work (online and IRL), promote our show and focus on engaging visitors in conversations about colour, memory and identity. The funding also removed the anxiety of relying upon sales to cover costs, particularly important for a show in a community gallery (i.e. not a commercial setting) and my having a fledgling Gold Coast following (after moving recently from the USA) - all in a context of an art market downturn.
Meet the artist event
We held a ‘meet the artist’ event at 12pm, Friday 3 October at which mum and I gave a talk about the artwork and our collaboration, and then took numerous questions from a very engaged audience. We provided basic nibbles (no alcohol allowed being a council building) and I hired a photographer. I created a Humanitix event to help manage RSVPs and despite attendance being over double the RSVP numbers, it was helpful for preparing the room layout for a larger audience than we initially anticipated!
Community arts table
The objective of the community arts activity was to share the power and wellbeing benefits of art with the community, through a simple activity of creating their own concertina and the reflections we prompted through that. We ran this activity daily throughout our exhibition, often simultaneously showing visitors around the exhibition.
On the table we had a range of mixed media materials, glue, scissors, and various substrates created from found materials (eg. shipping materials). Any visitors who wanted to participate were given gentle guidance, along with a prompt via mum’s concertina and examples of other concertinas on display.
Online exhibition
Initially I planned to use ArtPlacer to create a gallery render of the show for visitors to virtually move through. However, I soon realised that many of our intended online visitors didn’t have the inclination and/or tech skills to easily interact with the rendered format. When ArtPlacer then increased its prices and removed the gallery template suited to our show size, I pivoted to create an online walk-through and mini artist talks on YouTube.
I first provided an online tour of our entire show on Instagram and Facebook, and later on YouTube. Additionally, both mum and I shared videos/reels and images of the show every day of the show.
I’ve since created artist talk videos with Palettes 1 (here) and 2 (here) and more to come (turns out making YouTube videos is particularly time consuming!). All the footage was created with my iPhone.
BTW please subscribe to my YouTube channel if you haven’t yet!
Finally, I created a digital catalogue which is viewable here.
Printed materials and didactics
I designed and printed greetings cards and postcards using mum’s art and my art to sell at the show.
We created a ‘colour recipe book’ that contained samples of our individual colour swatches and mixing styles, to deepen the conversation about colour and engagement with the story of our collaboration with colour.
I also designed and printed the artists’ statement, bios, business cards and a newsletter sign up signs. After numerous refinements and discussions between us about the content of our didactics (labels), I formatted and printed those using 210 GSM paper, which I cut to size.
To encourage visitors to leave feedback, we had a guest book and a “voice wall”. The voice was butcher’s paper attached to the wall, with sticky notes of different shapes and colours to use for feedback.
It may be worth noting that, to ensure we had headshots and images to use in marketing and show materials, I set up a DIY photoshoot for mum and I earlier in my studio. I loaned studio lights from a local photographer and we used my iPhone to DIY all the photos, of each other and via duo selfies.
Marketing and promotion
Promotion was in large part through personally reaching out to our connections and communities to spread the word about our show, which we consistently did for months leading up to the show. I approached this in a way that felt like a delightful excuse to connect with friends and colleagues, making it feel less about promotion and more about relationships.
I designed and printed 500 A5 flyers which we physically dropped at mum’s over 50s village, numerous communities and clubs, local cafes, neighbours, businesses and council venues (libraries and the Robina community centre). The owners at LakeView Espresso also dropped flyers around their Robina community (thanks to this amazing business!) and a number of friends shared the flyers with their friends too.
I created a media release which I shared with a number of local radio/news outlets via their online forms, plus with one journalist via a personal contact. Mum also shared with one journalist contact in Logan. No local media picked up our show (that I’m aware of). Internationally, I was interviewed about my creative practice which included an opportunity to promote the show.
Mum and I promoted the show on Instagram and Facebook; I also used YouTube and BlueSky, to a lesser degree. Our show was promoted on the LoganArts newsletter and City of Gold Coast’s Creative Gold newsletter.
For my own newsletter, I shared the show’s progress and creation throughout the year. In the 2 months preceding our show I sent 4 emails which included invite details, and mid-way through the show I sent one email to share about the fun and progress. Since then, I’ve sent additional emails to share about the online version of our show.
Transportation
I made reusable artwork protection bags with insulation, which enabled me to safely pack the art into our cars and protect them in transit during hot, sunny weather. Being able to safely tetris-pack them into our cars also prevented additional costs of van hire. The temporary alternative option of bubble wrap tears and can indent marks into the artwork when packed closely together, so I believe these were a worthy investment and now I have a repeatable process for future shows.
Curation and hanging
Curation and hanging of the show was a team effort. For curation, I created a google sheet of the gallery walls to scale, which mum and I used for preliminary planning. Using this, Karleen Gwinner provided me mentorship to further refine our planning and room layout, including with account to our community arts activity.
For bump in on 30 September, 5 of the Creatives Inc committee members (excluding me!) assisted with hanging. Mum and I really needed this support not only due to mum’s physical limitations with her arms/shoulders, but also because we had to rehang the whole show after learning the gallery spotlighting is not movable like we first thought! This bump-in also meant that the Creatives Inc team could familiarise ourselves with Robina Art Gallery ready for our Aqua Lumina show that will exhibit there March/April 2025.
Mum and I handled the bump out just the two and it was a much more manageable exercise than bump in.
Recapping the numbers
From our daily headcount we estimated around 500 visitors across a range of demographics, including children and adults across all age ranges, with visitors coming from Robina to as far as North Brisbane. Attendance far exceeded our target of 200+ and the gallery managers noted that our daily numbers appeared higher than usual.
Our artist talk had over 60 attendees, filling the gallery up to the door! The event also was the most effective way we got sales.
Our online exhibition continues to receive viewership from Australia and internationally. I am aware of a number of cases where people were unable to attend due to physical limitations or health issues, scheduling conflicts or geographical limitations, who have told me they enjoyed viewing the video tours and talks online - a major driver for sharing our show in this way.
My goal of 10 new email subscribers was exceeded, with 60 new subscribers.
6 works were sold and I gained an out-of-town commission by sharing content about my art in the show on a thematic Facebook Group. We both also each sold about $80 in cards.
In total, 119 visitors left feedback for us. 55 comments were in our guest book; mostly adults but a handful of children. The Voice Wall received 38 adult feedback points and 26 from children and teenagers, including 6 drawn/visual comments.
Celebration!
Wow, reviewing what we did to deliver our exhibition highlights how much work we put in over the last year! (no wonder we are tired!). But honestly, what a joy and privilege to be able to create a unique body of work with my mum, Jennie Bell, and share it together with the local community. A memory we will cherish forever.
Now, let’s dig into the outcomes and lessons learned from our show - jump over to Part 2…
Have we shared anything that sparked ideas for you? Do you have some insights that we could try next time we show?
Please share below in the comments.
The Arts Development Fund is a City of Gold Coast Council fund that supports the Gold Coast’s creative community by fostering professional pathways and skills development, contributing to our city’s vibrant lifestyle.
Visit my shop - art makes a beautiful gift for the holiday season!
I am committed to honouring the wellbeing, creativity and leadership of every person. If I can help you or your team with this journey please reach out by contacting me here. Learn more about my coaching services here and workshops and facilitation here.