The Ashburton Art Gallery and Museum has been a whirlwind of activity leading up to the opening of four new exhibitions this Saturday evening.

The building has been closed for nearly two weeks while builders reconfigure the reception area on the ground floor, and that has given staff time to prepare and install the new exhibitions.

The doors will reopen at 6pm on Saturday and the community is invited to come along for a special look.

Items from the civic art collection and Ashburton Art Gallery Incorporated’s collection will feature in a new exhibition space on the upper floor, in the area that previously housed the gift shop and gallery reception area.

Gallery and Museum Director Shirin Khosraviani said the new exhibition space would resonate with locals, who would be able to see paintings and items special to the Whakatere Ashburton District.

“Many of these items have been bought by Councils and committee members of the past or donated by artists, and the scenes and themes are of places we know well.”

All four exhibitions will open on Saturday evening, with words of welcome from the artists and gallery and museum staff.

Shirin said her team had been busy preparing and painting the exhibition walls, as well as installing the artworks.

Timaru-based painter Michael Armstrong will be familiar to regular visitors and his exhibition Paintings of Ruined Mythic Phantasies addresses themes of social justice, politics, the environment and the misuse of power.

Inventory, by Marie Le Lievre, is about relinquishing control. In her paintings, paint is poured onto the canvas and manipulated by hand in an intuitive process that allows the medium to take its own course.

The fourth exhibition is Enmeshed: Feminist modes of information sharing. Artists Julia Holderness, Areez Katki, Erica van Zon, Ana Iti, and Claudia Kogachi each tell stories rewritten from new perspectives and challenge how we organise and share knowledge.

The gallery and museum returns to normal opening hours 10am-4pm from Sunday (with a late night Wednesday).

The Ashburton District Family History Group resumes it usual hours from next week.