The Franklin Art Centre is the Creative and Cultural Heart of the area formerly known as Franklin. We are situated in the Pukekohe town centre in Franklin: The Centre which also houses the Pukekohe Library and Mocca Cafe. We represent local artists from all over Auckland. The area formerly known as Franklin included the townshipsTuakau, Pokeno and Port Waikato but the boundries of the Super City was adjusted and those townships now form part of the Waikato region. Franklin Art Centre represented artists from these communities and have plenty of loyal patrons from these areas as well, so we have continued the long standing relationships and are committed to support any creative people around our gallery.
The Franklin Art Centre is now part of the Auckland Council and form part of the area called Art South. We are included in a large family of great galleries and are delighted to have strong bonds with other inventive and creative forces dedicated to developing art in Auckland.
Our Art Centre is made up of 4 sections: The New Zealand Steel Gallery which features large scale exhibitions in a variety of themes and art mediums, The Community Gallery which is a space that anyone can book to exhibit their work in, the Artefact shop which showcases high quality Arts and Crafts and our Programmes through which we provide art classes and projects to develop skill in artists.
The Community Gallery is there to be a useful tool for emerging artists to gain experience in exhibiting their work in a gallery space. There are few rules and the gallery staff do not vet any of the proposed exhibitions. This is to ensure that there are a platform for everyone in this community to participate in showing and sharing their art. This gallery space is incredibly popular and bookings for it is usually booked out in advance, the themes and types of exhibitions vary greatly and this is all part of the joy of seeing what the community comes up with.
The New Zealand Steel gallery has high standards and the artists work with the curators in the gallery to present their work- this gallery space also aims to present local artists but it's main focus is to be a catalyst to bring challenging and very high quality artwork to the community so that they have access to new developements in the art world.
The Art Programmes are always a work in progress and are often changing. We have a strong life drawing group, with two studio classes (not tutored) every Tuesday which is ongoing.