Toi o Tahuna Fine Art Gallery hosts Taking Stock, an exhibition of 20 diverse paintings, sculptures and photography by a dozen top-end established and emerging New Zealand artists who are represented by Jonathan Smart Gallery, of Christchurch.
Mr Smart will give a free talk to the public about the artists and their works, many of whom may be unfamiliar to a Wakatipu audience, he said.
Mr Smart said he had been in the process of moving his business from his self-titled gallery of 23 years, on Christchurch's High St, to larger premises on Salisbury St.
His wife and their two teenaged children were to live in the residence above the new gallery.
However, Mr Smart checked on his new almost completely refitted Salisbury St gallery about noon on the day of the quake only to find a gaping hole where a bedroom wall used to be and "terrible cracks" down the facade of the standalone building.
Mr Smart said the council had ordered the landlord to demolish the gallery building by the end of January.
Toi o Tahuna owner Mark Moran said he thought about the situation facing Christchurch gallery owners when the quake hit.
Toi o Tahuna manager Andrew Geffrey spotted Mr Smart's photographs of the wrecked gallery on his website and they decided to reach out to him, Mr Moran said.
Mr Smart said the exhibition title was a pun on Mr Smart taking stock from the Garden City to Queenstown and it also referred to the emotional process for him and his family after the quake.
"I've just opened a temporary space at 115 England St and I'll be there for a year while I find and refit new premises," Mr Smart said.
"Back on the horse - there's plenty of work to do."
• Taking Stock opens at Toi o Tahuna Fine Art Gallery today, 5.30pm to 7.30pm. Free talk by Jonathan Smart at 6pm. The exhibition runs until January 11.
