Girls, Goddesses and Greatness
2025-02-08 11:00 - 2025-02-23 16:00 (Australia/Melbourne)
A celebration of everything feminine

Includes a live performance on Saturday 22 February from 2pm to 4pm

Tickets for live performance:Adults $30Conc $20Children $20

Sumi-e artist Isabelle Kawai Vincent and musician, Oliver Vigor will take you on an immersive journey from acknowledging the courage of motherhood, to the cheeky shenanigans of Kimiko, and Japanese doll, and get in touch with your inner Goddess, regardless of gender. The grand finale will acknowledging the Year of the Snake with a gigantic Sumi-e brush painting a super long snake. Then you will be invited to contribute to this piece using Sumi-e ink and brushes and paint around the snake.

Girls, Goddeses and Greatness RUNS FROM Saturday 8 February 11am to Sunday 23 February at 4pm

For more information and bookings, scan the QR code below.

Upstander – Fundraiser supporting freedom & safety for women
2025-02-08 16:00 - 21:00
Upstander is a super-charged fundraising event supporting the freedom, safety and celebration of Women.

Upstander will raise money for a women’s refuge in the area (Annie North), increase awareness of what refuges do, and promote men’s behaviour-change programs in the area

Featuring:– Live Music: Castlemaine all-women’s group the Supersisters headlining with support from locals M79 and friends– Speakers from Annie North Women’s Refuge, Centre for Non-Violence and more– Local DJs: Jen Moore, Tina Rae and Clam Dirt are guaranteed to keep the vibe up and the dancing going

– Dance performance from Delicious Gagalicious

UPSTANDER RUNS FROM 4pm-9pm.

TICKETS: https://upstanderfiesta.com.au/?page_id=847

All women, men, gender expressions, ages welcome

Der Turm - Pop-up Exhibition
2025-03-08 11:00 - 2025-03-10 16:00
Der Turm by Lawrence and Riley Finn

Opening event: Saturday 8 March, 2-4pm

A collaborative exhibition by Lawrence and Riley Finn, a father-and-son duo exploring the power of printmaking as both artistic expression and historical dialogue.

Der Turm RUNS FROM Saturday 8 March 11am to Monday 10 March at 4pm

Departure Point - Group Exhibition
2025-03-15 11:00 - 2025-04-06 16:00
Departure Point by Melinda Harper, Zoe Amor, Michael Wolfe, Dale Cox

Opening event: Thursday 20 March, 4-6pm (artists in conversation with Suzanne Donisthorpe)

Departure Point is a live, visual conversation across mediums between established artists Melinda Harper, Zoe Amor, Michael Wolfe and Dale Cox with raconteur Suzanne Donisthorpe delving into the finer points of their Art life and work at the lot19 Gallery on Jaara Country.

Departure Point RUNS FROM Saturday 15 March 11am to Sunday6 April at 4pm

Castlemaine Idyll 2025
2025-03-15 13:00 - 22:30
Castlemaine Idyll is Central Victoria’s ultimate talent contest, a ridiculously fun event and major fundraiser for lot19.SAVE THE DATE: SATURDAY 15 MARCH, 2025 Idyll features hot local voices, a hugely talented professional band, celebrity judges and a community uniting joyously in support. And we’re excited that Castlemaine Idyll Kids Karaoke (CIKK)) will return in 2025!

For more photos and to keep up to date with Castlemaine Idyll, follow us on Facebook, or join the lot19 mailing list for early access to tickets.

Image: Star Lady at Castlemaine Idyll 2022 (photo by Richard Baxter)

Autumn Philosophy
2025-03-20 05:30 - 20:30
Autumn Philosophy

Thursday 20 Mar 2025, 5:30 pm – 8:30 pm

lot19 kitchen, 19 Mcshanag Rd, Castlemaine

What does hope look like in a time of impending darkness?How can we gather what we have to make what we need?Our Autumn Community Philosophy Workshop will focus on what we can gather, glean and store away for darker days through care-full conversation over the kitchen bench. Join us as we gather, glean, chop and bottle what we have harvested over the past season, and consider what might be able to carry forward from this time into the future.Held in the lot 19 kitchen this hands on workshop will be part food preservation, part community philosophy. We will be exploring themes of gleaning, bricolage, mutual aid, radical rest and community care as we preserve what has been harvested from our local surroundings.

Tickets are available through purchase or donation of produce.

Departure Point - Exhibition Opening
2025-03-20 16:00 - 18:00
Departure Point by Melinda Harper, Zoe Amor, Michael Wolfe, Dale Cox

Exhibition Opening event: Thursday 20 March, 4-6pm (artists in conversation with Suzanne Donisthorpe)

Departure Point is a live, visual conversation across mediums between established artists Melinda Harper, Zoe Amor, Michael Wolfe and Dale Cox with raconteur Suzanne Donisthorpe delving into the finer points of their Art life and work at the lot19 Gallery on Jaara Country.

Departure Point RUNS FROM Saturday 15 March 11am to Sunday 6 April at 4pm

WORDSPOKEN - Castlemaine Fringe
2025-03-27 19:30 - 2025-04-05 21:30
WORDSPOKEN

27 Mar 2025, 7:30 pm – 9:30 pm

lot19 Tram, 19 Mcshanag Rd, Castlemaine

A live theatrical experience where story, music, slow circus, and poetry meet in an old Melbourne tram. A lo-fi, full-presence event, WORDSPOKEN will usher you mischievously into the night.

Celebrating local artists, each show will bring a new voice to the fore. 27, 28 Mar & 4, 5 Apr. $30/$25.

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Club Unity - Castlemaine Fringe
2025-03-29 17:00 - 23:30
Club Unity

29 Mar 2025, 5:00 pm – 11:50 pm

lot19, 19 Mcshanag Rd, Castlemaine

Club Unity is a party series showcasing DJ sets and Live acts, launched in Naarm with the next one being at lot19 in Castlemaine! We acknowledge the Dja Dja Wurrung as the custodians of the land this event will be hosted on.

$20/$15.

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Dimensional Illustrations
2025-04-12 10:00 - 2025-04-27 16:00
Dimensional Illustrations by Deborah Klein

Exhibition runs: 12-27 April, Sat/Sun, 10am-4pm

Deborah Klein has worked in all aspects of the creative industry in both Australia and overseas for over 30 years. She has maintained a parallel practice as a commercial and exhibiting artist for much of that time.

While studying graphic design and marketing at RMIT Deborah discovered traditional cut-paper illustration. She went on to explore and expand the possibilities of this practice, teaching herself methods of manipulating paper that combined her love of illustration and sculpture. The work featured in Deborah Klein: Dimensional Paper Illustrations is a survey of that exploration.

Dimensional Paper Illustration Workshop: Sunday 27 April,12pm-4pm, doors at 11.45am

Tickets

Lot19 Studio & Garage Sale
2025-05-10 09:00 - 17:00

Jeremy Forbes & Brett Davies: SHARED GROUND
2025-05-10 11:00 - 16:00
Opening Celebration: Friday May 9, 5 – 9pmExhibition: May 10 – 25, Sat/Sun, 11 – 4

Brett Igmus Davies has been exploring the use of movement in his sculptures. Inspired by the works of Alexander Calder, this exhibition will feature sculptural mobiles made from wood, wire, and found objects that will gently dance in the airspace above his more renowned stationary wood carvings.

Jeremy ‘Jez’ Forbes continues his formidable ‘shedism’ movement with exploration and inspiration in Kyoto and Central Victoria, as well as a focus on nostalgia through Cuisenaire rods, boardgames, and colour.‘Shedding Verse’ is an extra-special element of this exhibition: Jez’s collaboration with poet Noa Schaerf-Trauner, who has written poems for a selection of Jez’s paintings that will be displayed next to the artworks. Noa will also read a selection of her poems on opening night.

Finally, Jez will present a collection of paintings from his years of being inspired by sheds and his painting journey — Shedism: A Movement Is Born, A Movement Grows.

SHARED GROUND
2025-05-10 11:00 - 2025-05-24 16:00
Brett Igmus Davies has been exploring the use of movement in his sculptures. Inspired by the works of Alexander Calder, this exhibition will feature sculptural mobiles made from wood, wire, and found objects that will gently dance in the airspace above his more renowned stationary wood carvings.Jeremy ‘Jez’ Forbes continues his formidable ‘shedism’ movement with exploration and inspiration in Kyoto and Central Victoria, as well as a focus on nostalgia through Cuisenaire rods, board games, and colour.

‘Shedding Verse’ is an extra-special element of this exhibition: Jez’s collaboration with poet Noa Schaerf-Trauner, who has written poems for a selection of Jez’s paintings that will be displayed next to the artworks. Noa will also read a selection of her poems on opening night. Finally, Jez will present a collection of paintings from his years of being inspired by sheds and his painting journey — Shedism: A Movement Is Born, A Movement Grows.

Linda Dunstan
2025-06-14 11:00 - 2025-06-29 16:00

The Selkie's Timekeeper
2025-07-12 14:00 - 2025-07-27 19:00
Opening CelebrationSaturday 12 July, 4 – 6pm With the artists, live music, warm fire, bar and glowing artworks.

Selkies – mythic seal people who shift between land and sea are timeless folkloric symbols of longing, transformation and fluid identity.

The Selkie’s Timekeeper is the collaborative work between Costumier /Textile Artist Madeleine Somers and Illumination Artist Laura Jade.

Through projection, refraction, and material play, the exhibition charts rhythms of return and metamorphosis and time, marked by lunar pull and its tides. Stingray bones become navigational tools; lights and shadows play, projections ripple across surfaces like moonlight.

Sculptures of reclaimed, hand painted textiles shimmer. Hybrid sea life both creature and coral, recall the architecture of shells – vessels of memory and protection. Suspended and illuminated these forms act as reliquaries.

The Selkie’s Timekeeper invites you to float inside a cyclical space – part dream, part tide pool, part disco.

Give Water to Birds
2025-08-03 14:00 - 17:00
ZÖJ is not just a duo but a conversation—between worlds, between past and present, between the known and the unnameable. Since 2016, Gelareh Pour and Brian O’Dwyer have been making music under this name, though their collaboration stretches back further, to when they first began tracing the edges of each other’s sound in 2012.

Their debut album, Fil O Fenjoon (2023), was unrushed, inevitable. It resonated, not just in accolades (the Australian Wettest 100’s number one album, the Excellence in Experimental Practice award at the 2024 APRA AMCOS Art Music Awards) but in the way it settled into listeners like something remembered rather than discovered.ZÖJ’s second album, Give Water to Birds (June 2025 via Bleeemo Music Australia and Parenthesis Records Europe), marks a compelling new chapter in the duo’s evolving musical journey. Building on the foundations of their critically acclaimed debut, this release sees ZÖJ, Gelareh Pour and Brian O’Dwyer, pushing their sound into new and unexpected territories.Featuring Brett Langsford on guitar, Give Water to Birds expands ZÖJ’s sonic landscape, blending intricate melodies, atmospheric textures and rhythmic explorations that defy categorisation. The album captures the duo’s deepening commitment to experimentation and storytelling. While their debut explored the intersection of tradition and innovation, Give Water to Birds delves further into themes of transformation, resilience and the human connection to nature.

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Self and Place - Pencil and Brush
2025-08-09 11:00 - 2025-08-24 16:00
Self and Place; Pencil and Brush is a solo exhibition of colourful self portrait and landscape works by visual artist, poet and musician, Allis Hamilton. Between 2019–2022 Allis turned some of her landscape drawings, created sitting with the ants on the earth looking and recording her impressions, into oil paintings. She will exhibit landscape paintings from the Flinders Ranges, as well as works depicting places closer to Castlemaine. Also during this time Allis drew many and varied self-portraits in pencil on paper. These drawings will enliven the walls of the show alongside her landscape works.The exhibition will be opened by renowned Castlemaine artist Sir Les Thornton, following which Allis will perform some music, then some ambient sounds performed by Sha.On Sunday 17th August at 11am Ross Gillet will launch Allis’s new book, Stone — a collection of poems and drawings around her experience surviving a paralysing brain hemorrhage.

Spring Into The Blue Cloud
2025-08-30 17:00 - 23:59
Anna Morley & Tom McGowan (live)Square Wave Bounce (live)OK Darling (live)Luqman (live)Joel Pearson (DJ)Tom Barker (DJ)DJ Clam (DJ)

Saturday, August 30, Lot19 presents a line up featuring some of Central Victoria’s finest – a blend of live music and DJs, complemented by delicious food and drink, devised to get your head noddin’ and feet movin’!

Come along to the Lot19 gallery for an evening of synthpop/house/electronica for your dancing enjoyment.

Tickets

Online: $20

Door: $25

Join us as we Spring into the Blue Cloud and celebrate the arrival of sunshine and warm weather to the Mount Alexander Shire.

Spring into the Blue Cloud takes place on Djarra Country, the unceded lands of the Dja Dja Wurrung. Always was, always will be Aboriginal land. Entry is free for mob from all over.

Hope - is the thing with feathers
2025-09-13 11:00 - 2025-09-28 16:00
Opening Celebration – Friday, September 12, 6pm

Exhibition runs: September 13 – 28, Sat/Sun 11 – 4

‘Birds have been used as symbols of freedom, hope, spirit, transition, and new opportunities since time immemorial, in every culture, in every era. The primary reason for this is their ability to fly, to be free.’

Chrisanne Blennerhasset, Bridget Farmer, Ken Killeen, Jonathon Lane, Eleni Rivers, Jane Rusden, and Diane Thompson are a motley flock of Castlemaine artists drawn to the avian world for inspiration, connecting to something vital in our environment, something precious and beautiful and wondrous and vulnerable. They are making statements about things they love, and through their art, hope to assist those who see the artworks to look a little closer and care a little deeper.

The title of the exhibition is taken from a poem by Emily Dickinson.

“Hope” is the thing with feathers –That perches in the soul –And sings the tune without the words –And never stops – at all –

And sweetest – in the Gale – is heard –And sore must be the storm –That could abash the little BirdThat kept so many warm –

I’ve heard it in the chillest land –And on the strangest Sea –Yet – never – in Extremity,It asked a crumb – of me.

Lot19 Spring Sculpture Prize 2025
2025-10-11 11:00 - 2025-10-26 16:00
Since its inception in 2006, the Spring Sculpture Prize has been a key event in the Central Victorian artistic calendar. With a fabulous festive afternoon opening, over $6,000 worth of prizes, independent judges and a three-week exhibition, the prize is beloved by artists and visitors alike. The Spring Sculpture Prize Opening will be held from 2pm on Saturday 11 October, featuring live music, food and the lot19 bar. The exhibition is open 11-5pm, Saturdays and Sundays until October 26.

Spring Sculpture Prize Judges 2025

Leslie Thornton(Sir) Leslie Thornton, a frequent Lot19 exhibitor (winner sculpture prize 2022) born Brisbane 1950, self knighted 1990 (services to the banking sector). Leslie’s art practice includes painting, clocks, humourous ficticious documents, ceramics, political cartoons, collage and double adaptor creations.

Madeleine McClellandMadeleine is an accomplished arts manager, and has overseen public art collections and commissioning for Melton City Council and Nillumbik Shire Council. She is currently Coordinator Public Art and Creative Industries at Mount Alexander Shire Council. She has decades of experience in working with communities to deliver arts programs, and in fundraising and communications for small to medium non-profit organisations. Madeleine has qualifications in Art History and Curatorship, Community Development and is undertaking a Masters in Creative Arts Therapies.

Kim PercyKim Percy is a multidisciplinary artist, curator, and educator with extensive experience as an artist, designer, educator and curator. She has exhibited nationally and internationally, has a PhD in visual art, and curated exhibitions at her gallery Radius. Her practice explores social issues, bringing deep insight and critical engagement to her role as art judge.

Artist: Dan Murphy - Drive-by
2025-11-08 11:00 - 2025-11-23 17:00
Sat/Sun 11 – 5

Inspired by the landscape in which he lives, Central Australia. Artist Dan Murphy will present a series of abstract, 2 dimensional works from old car panels that are cut and sewn together with wire.

Alchemy: Through the Lens of Nature’s Resilience
2025-11-28 10:00 - 2025-12-07 16:00
Kristy Lynch is a Bendigo artist who began painting in 2019 as part of her healing journey from addiction and mental health. Her latest collection, Alchemy: Through the Lens of Nature’s Resilience, draws on nature and memories of fire, water, and sky. Legally blind, Kristy transforms emotion into vivid imagery, showing that true vision comes from feeling as much as seeing.November 28 – December 7Friday, Saturday and Sunday 10 – 4pm

Salon of Smalls
2025-12-12 11:00 - 2025-12-21 17:00
Come one, come all!

We’re very excited to announce a brand-new annual group show in the Lot19 Gallery: Salon of Smalls.

Picture this—every wall of the gallery brimming with a delightful collection of small works, each one priced under $300. Perfect for festive gift giving or a small treat for oneself.

Opening PartyFriday Dec 12, 5pm – 8pm

Closing FiestaSunday Dec 21, 2pm – 5pm

Club Unity
2025-12-13 08:00 - 2025-12-14 00:00
𝐒𝐀𝐓𝐔𝐑𝐃𝐀𝐘 𝐃𝐄𝐂𝐄𝐌𝐁𝐄𝐑 𝟏𝟑𝐓𝐇5pm – 12amClub Unity returns to Lot 19 (Castlemaine/ Djaara Country) with a 2x stage festival for our last event of 2025 ✨

𝐒𝐔𝐏𝐄𝐑 𝐃𝐘𝐍𝐀𝐌𝐈𝐂 𝐒𝐓𝐀𝐆𝐄: LUQMAN B2B KENJIMS. ONUR KURT FT. TARABEAT (LIVE)DJ EMIOTORONGO (BRI)VEE

𝐌𝐀𝐇𝐈𝐊𝐀𝐈 𝐒𝐎𝐔𝐍𝐃 𝐒𝐓𝐀𝐆𝐄:LIM_ONETRIBEZËODJ MATABDJ CLAMRUCHI

+++ 𝐕𝐈𝐒𝐔𝐀𝐋𝐒 (LIVE + INSTALLATION), 𝐒𝐓𝐀𝐋𝐋𝐒, 𝐅𝐎𝐎𝐃

GET YOUR TICKETS NOWfor this all star event in an open air location & STAY POSTED AS THERE WILL ALSO BE AN OFFICIAL AFTER PARTY UNTIL SUNRISE 15MIN FROM LOT 19!

Proceeds will go to fundraising for a soundsystem!

Portal
2026-02-07 10:00 - 2026-02-22 16:00
By Fionna Madigan, Lisa McPherson, Jenny Divers

You are warmly invited to enter a portal of remembrance and presence. 7th-22nd February, Thursday-Sunday

Painter Fionna Madigan, and ceramicists Lisa McPherson and Jenny Divers, invite you through a portal into a soulful and celebratory realm in which to explore space, psyche, touch and medicine.

Fionna is an award-winning exhibiting artist whose work straddles a fertile zone between realism and abstraction. Her immersive works are lush and optically playful, inspired by the forms and flora of the Victorian Goldfields.

Lisa McPherson is a ceramist and a practitioner of East Asian Medicine. Her work involves moving between bodies; human bodies and bodies of clay. These sensitive, hand-built forms explore notions of touch, healing and memory.

Jenny Divers’ ceramic practice is inspired by natural and constructed landscapes through which she has lived, worked and travelled. These contemplative forms investigate place and invite tactile engagement.

Opening Sunday 8 February, 4pm to 6pm

Opening Hours Sat 7 February, 10-4pmSunday Feb 8 – 10am – 6pm (Opening Reception 4pm – 6pm)Thursday Feb 12 – 10am – 4pmFriday Feb 13 – 10am – 4pmSaturday Feb 14 – 10am – 4pmSunday Feb 15 – 10am – 4pmThursday Feb 19 – 10am – 4pmFriday Feb 20 – 10am – 4pmSaturday Feb 21 – 10am – 4pmSunday Feb 22 – 10am – 4pm

Castlemaine Idyll
2026-03-14 13:00 - 22:30
Saturday 14 March 2026

Castlemaine’s Premier talent contest, lot19 fundraiser and a ridiculous amount of joy and community fund. Contestants, hot band, celebrity judges, volunteers, dancing, singing, broadcasting and more…​

This year’s theme: movie soundtracks!

This is one of those Castlemaine things that works because we do it together

Familiar movie songs. Local voices. A live band. A crowd that already knows how this works. Castlemaine IDYLL is back at Lot19

IDYLL is all about familiar songs, brave humans having a go, and a crowd that cheers loudly.

Idyll runs 1pm to 10.30pm
