You know you’re doing pretty well when they start naming buildings after you, and that honour has just been bestowed on Australian artist Mark Schaller with the opening of The Schaller Studio. The 128-room hotel, part of the Art Series Hotel Group, is located in Bendigo, and is the first of the group’s smaller Studio series designed specially for regional Australia. The group hopes to draw on the burgeoning artistic and cultural output from the provinces, prove that there’s plenty worth seeing outside the big cities, and encourage domestic tourists to explore more of their own vast back yard.
The Schaller Studio is carrying more than 240 of the expressionist’s original artworks, including oil paintings, wood and bronze sculpture and mosaic. As a partner of the successful Bendigo Art Gallery, the venue will also be hosting a programme of exhibitions, including the inaugural, saucy-sounding Undressed: 350 Years of Underwear in Fashion. Guests at the hotel can also get inspired themselves and there’s a library full of Australian art books and equipped public spaces to sketch in.
