The White Walls of China

China Heights is an independent gallery in Surry Hills. The artist roster includes Design is Kinky, Vice Magazine, Cream Clothing, The Yok, Adidas, Nike, local street artists, photographers and designers. The venue is also home to The Heights studio; seven individuals working in design, fine arts and fashion. China Heights offers a venue for Sydney designers from all walks of life to show their stuff and a gallery relaxed enough to invite anyone in from the street.

Walk up three flights of stairs and enter a designer’s paradise: a blank canvas. Four white walls waiting to be turned into whatever the artist or designer’s heart desires, no limitations.

‘We are open to anything,’ gallery manager, Mark Drew, informed me as we sat between these four blank walls. The space was in transition between one show and the next. ‘Designers submit work to us and we show it - so long as it fits into the realm of an art or fashion show.’ Apparently this ethos works both ways and, as a result, the shows that eventuate from this open-minded attitude are always different. According to Mark this is important to visitors to the Heights; ‘That’s what people expect when they walk up three flights of stairs - they want to be impressed!’

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Open since April 2004, China Heights is designed with an attitude that ‘anything goes’. It is a place for Sydney designers and artists to meet that encourages free work and expansion, for people to experience a show and enjoy some free beer on a Friday or Saturday night. ‘We push designers to go outside the box and create their own world within the space,’ Ed Woodley, Gallery curator tells me.

Mark and Ed are not about dictating trends and fashions. They are receptive to the way each designer wants to utilise the space. And what are the gallery’s stipulations for exhibition artists? ‘They can do anything,’ Mark assures me, ‘aside from changing the gallery structurally’.

At an exhibition the crowd is varied - people come in from the street, off the cuff. These informed stragglers are not the gallery’s only clientele though. ‘As we have grown through the years we have begun to attract people who not only want to see a show and enjoy a free beer they want to buy art’, says Mark. He continues to explain that this is great because of the resulting mentality; ‘design first-and-foremost and free booze as a bonus!’

China Heights’ position perpetuates this crowd and keeps the desired tone alive. Mark’s sentiment is that there’s no place like home; ‘this is always where we said we would have a gallery’. In Surry Hills; a growing area in the Sydney design world.

The guys believe that being positioned in Surry Hills allows them more freedom in what they show, as the area is not as established within the Sydney design scene. And, as a bonus, its right near the train line so people can enjoy a Friday night show before they go out. Or, to use Marks rather amusing turn of phrase; ‘Come, get drunk and enjoy some art as well’.

The China Heights world has become a huge part of these guys’ lives. ‘Everything else is secondary,’ says Ed, ‘or on the same level with the gallery and our design work’. Mark and Ed spend half their time on gallery work and half their time on their own pieces. The Heights Studio space offers a great place for the designers to come together and work on their individual projects, growing the options available in the Sydney design scene.

If Mark and Ed have a say then China Heights will always exist, they have no desire to shut it down, only to expand. For China Heights, next stop is the world Ed says;

‘We have begun exhibiting with others interstate and want to open our own galleries both interstate and eventually overseas.’

So next time you’re in the neighbourhood on a Friday or Saturday night, step into the world of China Heights. See some art, buy a piece, enjoy a free beer (or two) on a summer night and experience a new artistic adventure each week.