Hero Image: Jennifer Laracy, Parure (installation view), Season, Grey Lynn, Tāmaki Makaurau, 2025. Photo: Samuel Hartnett.

In the shifting landscape of Aotearoa’s contemporary art scene, a quiet force is reshaping expectations from the heart of Grey Lynn. Season, a dealer gallery tucked into Great North Road, is rewriting the rules with care and conviction.

In just over three years, Season has carved out a space that’s become one of the most compelling in the country - a home for some of the most exciting artists working today: Ayesha Green, Gerard Dombroski, Hamish Coleman, Jade Townsend, John Miller, Maia Kreisler, Maungarongo Te Kawa, Ming Ranginui, Moniek Schrijer, Neke Moa, Richard McWhannell, Robyn Kahukiwa, Tony Guo, and 박성환 Sung Hwan Bobby Park. 

It’s an extraordinary list and a reflection of the abundance Season works from, not against.

And that’s just it - abundance. While others brace against the pressures of the market, Season leans into the richness of Aotearoa’s talent. It is this abundance, of creativity, of connection, of potential that Season has built itself around.

Co-founded in 2021 - during the long hush of lockdown - the gallery is the result of a deep creative kinship between artist and curator Jade Townsend (Ngāti Kahungunu, Te Āti Haunui-a-Pāpārangi) and writer and curator Francis McWhannell (Pākehā). 

From the outset, they weren’t trying to reinvent the commercial gallery model, but they’ve done exactly that. Their shared ethic, rooted in trust and relationships, has quietly disrupted expectations of what a dealer gallery can be.

“We didn’t set out to build a new model,” the duo reflects, “we just wanted to support artists we care about and create a space that felt honest and that felt like us. Everything else grew from there.”

A dealer gallery with a difference

While the gallery runs as a commercial space, there are a lot of ways in which it doesn’t perform like one. There’s no art-world theatre here, no fast churn. Instead, there’s attention. Presence. Slowness, even.

“We say yes slowly,” they explain. “It’s not about exclusivity. It’s about depth. We work with artists who challenge us, who energise us, who we can hold space for.”

And that space is spacious. Their exhibitions range from solo shows to rich group explorations and are built around relationships and dialogue. McWhannell calls it “soft infrastructure” - a structure not made of systems or scarcity, but of care.

This approach was on full, confident display last month, as Season presented work across two major art fairs: the Aotearoa Art Fair and the inaugural May Art Fair. Far from compromising their voice, these presentations amplified it - tender, assured, generous. 

Hosting as an ethic

At Season, hosting is more than logistics. It’s an ethic and a way of showing up.

“It’s about how people feel when they walk in the door.”

 “We don’t want people to feel intimidated. We want them to feel welcome, seen.”

This spirit runs deep. From how the space serves the work of artists to how it greets visitors, from the warmth of their openings to the shape of their emails. It’s not a posture, it’s a practice.

Transparent, not transactional

There’s a radical honesty to the way the gallery duo speak about economics, power, and art.

“There’s this narrative of scarcity in the arts - that there’s not enough to go around,” they reflect. “We’re not interested in replicating that. We want to redistribute what we can in a way that’s ethical, transparent.”

Season isn’t anti-commercial - they’re a working gallery, after all - but they resist the extractive tendencies of the art market. They aren’t chasing sales at any cost. They’re building something slower, more sustainable. Something that lasts.

“Some of our most important work doesn’t even happen in the gallery,” they comment. “It’s in the conversations, the holding, the quiet bits between shows.”

Friendship as framework

Unlike galleries built on strategy or exclusivity, Season is built on friendship. Not as a gatekeeping tool, but as a methodology. 

Their projects don’t come out of nowhere; they come out of long conversations, mutual care, and shared ethics.

“We’re not pretending to be a neutral institution,” they say. “We’re a space that runs on friendship, on values, on trust. That doesn’t make things easier, it just makes them deeper.”

And while that might sound idealistic, the proof is in the work. 

In just a few short years, the gallery has developed and held one of the most compelling stables of artists in the country. Their exhibitions are consistently thoughtful, their programming sharp, and their impact undeniable.

Holding change lightly

The gallerist duo are also refreshingly honest about impermanence. They know that galleries - like relationships, like artists, like life - change.

“We don’t know how long Season will last,” they admit. “But while we can hold it, we will.”

That sense of impermanence is a strength. It allows them to stay nimble, responsive, and open. It gives them permission to lead with values rather than outcomes.

A gallery of and for this place

Season is a gallery shaped by Aotearoa - its energy, its histories, and its future-makers. It resists the pull to replicate offshore models or chase validation from a distant art world. Instead, it digs deep into the richness of what is already here. 

By asking different questions - What does it mean to really care for artists? What does representation look like beyond a press release? How do you build something enduring? - Season isn’t just navigating a different path. It’s lighting the way for others.

This isn’t just a rulebook rewrite. It’s an entirely new volume: slower, braver, more human. A model built not on scarcity or spectacle but on the quiet, radical abundance of this land and its people.

Season Gallery is located on Great North Road, Grey Lynn, Tāmaki Makaurau. Follow their work on Instagram at @seasonaotearoa.