Best Galleries in the Margaret River Region: A Maker's Honest Review

People ask me which galleries are worth the time when they come down this way. It's a fair question and I think they expect me to dodge it, since I run one myself. I don't. I've been working here forty years, I know most of these places by the names of the people who run them, and I'll tell you straight what I think.

This is not a ranking. There is no best gallery in the region in the way there is no best beach. There are places that do different things well, and places that have changed over the years, and a couple that are doing something now they weren't doing five years ago. I'll walk you through them the way I'd walk a visitor through, in the order I'd send them.

Photo: David Stanley, CC BY 2.0 · via Wikimedia Commons

The honest truth is that the densest concentration of working artists in this region is around Yallingup and Dunsborough. Not Margaret River town. The town has restaurants and wine cellars and a brewery. The makers are mostly up here on the ridge, between the Cape and the highway.

That has reasons behind it that go back to the seventies. Cheap land, slow-paced, the right kind of quiet, and a coastline that does something to the way you see. I've written about that elsewhere why so many makers ended up here. For now, just understand the geography. With a day to see art, start north.

Photo: Lasthib, CC BY-SA 4.0 · via Wikimedia Commons

This is the oldest gallery in the region, and it deserves the title. It sits in bush off Caves Road in a building that was always going to age well. Inside is a serious survey of Australian painting, sculpture, jewellery and furniture: represented artists, properly hung, not the souvenir end of the market.

What I like about it is the rotation. The work changes. You can go in three times a year and see three different shows. They won the 2024 Business Excellence Award for innovation, which means somebody in a suit noticed what regulars have known for two decades.

For one gallery on Caves Road that isn't mine, this is it. Allow an hour. Don't try to rush it.

I'll be direct since this is my honest review. I built the gallery in 1988 out of jarrah and southwest limestone. The walls are the same wood I cut into furniture, which means the building and the pieces are speaking the same language. You walk in, you look at the furniture, and you can look through a window into the workshop and watch the work being made.

What's different here from the other galleries is that there's no separation between making and selling. The pieces in the room came out of the workshop ten metres away. I'm usually there. Got a question about a piece, the person who made it will answer.

The 2009 expansion brought in glassblower Alan Fox, painter Julia Carter, painter Elani, and photographer Dylan Fox, so it's not just furniture anymore. Pamela runs the space. She'll tell you the story of every piece in it.

We're on Blythe Rd, off Bussell Hwy. Google Maps sometimes misdirects via Wildwood Rd — stay on Bussell Hwy, turn at the Carbunup store, then Blythe Rd. Open most days. If the workshop door is open, I'm in.

Boranup sits in the middle of the Boranup Forest, south of Margaret River town, surrounded by karri trees twenty-five metres tall. The drive in is part of the visit.

The work inside is paintings, glass, ceramics, sculpture, jewellery and a strong line of timber furniture. It's a serious gallery. The owners have built relationships with makers across the South West and the curation reflects that. They sell furniture too, some of it very good. I've known the team for years and I respect what they do.

Coming up from Augusta or doing the south end of the region, Boranup is the gallery to plan around. Two hours, easily.

Photo: Stuart Sevastos, CC BY 2.0 · via Wikimedia Commons

JahRoc Galleries had a retail space on the main street of Margaret River town for twenty years. As of 2025 the retail space is closed and the operation has moved fully to their furniture manufacturing headquarters, which you can visit by appointment or during their open weeks.

I'll say it plain. JahRoc has been one of the better-known furniture-and-fine-art galleries in the region for a long time, and the move surprised some people. It shouldn't have. Running a town-centre retail space is brutal, and they've decided to do the work and let people come to the work. I'd argue it's a more honest version of the same business.

To see their furniture and the artists they represent, check their site for visit windows and go to the workshop. It's worth the drive.

Christian Fletcher is one of the country's serious landscape photographers and his gallery in Dunsborough is where you go if you want a print of this coast that isn't a postcard. Big, technically-loaded prints, the kind that take twenty minutes to hang properly. He's been working this region for decades and he knows what to point a camera at.

If photography is your thing, allow forty-five minutes. If it isn't, you might still walk out with a print, because some of the work is hard to walk past.

A few places that don't get the press but reward a visit:

• Yallingup Aboriginal Art: represents Indigenous artists from across WA. Quietly excellent.
• The Studio Gallery, Yallingup Hill: small, careful curation, often has work I haven't seen elsewhere.
• Cellar door galleries: Vasse Felix has serious exhibitions in its cellar door space, often touring shows. Not a gallery as such, but worth a look if you're already there for lunch.

Photo: Vasse Felix, CC BY-SA 2.0 · via Wikimedia Commons

A few things you might expect to see and won't.

I'm not going to list every place that calls itself a gallery and sells decorative homewares. There are a lot of them down here and some of them have nice things, but they're not galleries in the sense I use the word. A gallery is a place where the work is curated, the makers are represented seriously, and somebody can tell you the story of what you're looking at.

I'm also not listing pop-ups or studios that only open for the Open Studios fortnight in September. Those are worth doing if you're here at the right time and you can grab the catalogue at the visitor centre. More than 150 artists open their working spaces over two weeks. It's the best window on the actual making in the region.

If I had a friend with one day and they wanted to see the best of it, here's what I'd do.

1. 9am

   Coffee in Yallingup

   Start at the bakery or one of the cafes on Caves Road. You want to be moving by half nine.

2. 9.30am

   Yallingup Galleries

   First stop. Allow an hour. Look at the current show and don't rush.

3. 11am

   John Streater Fine Furniture, Blythe Rd

   Come and see what we're making. I'll be there. Allow forty-five minutes if you're just looking; longer if you're thinking about commissioning something.

4. 12.30pm

   Lunch at Vasse Felix or somewhere near

   Eat well. Look at whatever they've got hanging.

5. 2.30pm

   Christian Fletcher, Dunsborough

   The photography stop. Forty-five minutes.

6. 4pm

   Boranup Gallery if you've got time

   Only if you're up for the drive south. It's worth it, but it's a commitment. Otherwise save it for tomorrow.

7. 6pm

   Sunset at Canal Rocks

   End where the painters end up. You'll understand by then.

This region punches above its weight on art and craft. The reason isn't subsidies or marketing. It's that a lot of working makers chose to live here over the last fifty years and the ones who stayed built galleries that reflect them. You can do a serious gallery day here without ever feeling like you've been sold to.

The work is good. The people behind the work are around. You can buy something you'll keep for a long time and remember the room you bought it in. That's the test I'd use for whether a gallery is worth your afternoon.

For the planned version with maps and addresses, a self-drive gallery crawl has the route. To understand why there's so much making down here in the first place, how this artist community came together.

For dates of open weekends and exhibitions, the Open Studios fortnight in September is the biggest one. Otherwise Tourism Western Australia's arts pages keep a calendar.