Q&A: Emily Rose Hastie
OG Mintie: Emily Rose Hastie (somewhere in the background)
Ahead of our retrospective this weekend, we spoke to founding member Emily Hastie about the evolution and rolling doors of Mint Art House
Mint: So, you’re curating a big group show in the gallery this Saturday night, what are we celebrating?
Emily: “Seven Years” of Mint is a retrospective of some of the key players of yesteryear and today that have made Mint the amazing place that it became and continues to be. Back in 2019, we started out as an ad-hoc group of just eight Gold Coast artists brought together in a derelict car showroom with bullet holes in the front window glass and leaks everywhere. However, we made it into this playground for art; everything since has grown out of that petri dish.
Mint: What were you all doing before that?
Emily: I guess the majority of people were just practicing in isolation, in their rooms. I’d been fortunate enough to experience a co-operative just before at The Dust Temple [Currumbin] called Sofa Gallery. That was just four of us and it really made it so much more exciting and so much more real- making art amongst other Gold Coast creatives who were keen, when that dissolved, to jump in and see if we could start something even bigger together.
Mint: So, the first Mint HQ was just up the road at 55 West Burleigh Road, who were the early players?
Emily: Back then, it was Jude McElroy, Natpop, Cara [Sanders], Dion [Parker], Jillian Bradley, Dean Brockett, Vicky Satchwell, Danielle Borody and myself. It was us in the front space for six months and eventually the landlord said that they wanted to rent that [space] out so we quickly put word out through our Mint socials that we were moving. We had a lot of local artists pop up, super-keen to join in on the movement; because you really need that critical mass to make an arts cooperative work. We were able to get another eight artists to join the cause and we migrated to 87 West Burleigh Road into a little dance studio that had to move during lockdown. It’s gone through many iterations and rotations but we’ve stuck together through thick and thin to become the founders of the Shed 5 studio that we currently work out of.Mint: How did you turn a shed into a working art studio?
Emily: When we moved in, we had a completely blank warehouse except it had this beautiful bar that just seemed meant to be and luckily we had the very capable artist and builder that is Dion Parker build it up with a little assistance from others. Basically, we all sat down, on the floor, and everyone described what kind of space they needed for their practice - because some needed big walls and space to move, whereas others like Steve [Gorman] and I were pretty content to operate in a smaller area. So, with those founding twelve artists, we put together the floor map that exists to this day. That’s their legacy.
Mint: How many artists have passed through Mint in the last seven years?
Emily: I was trying to count that up the other day and it came to something like forty five plus because so many people have come though over the years. I mean, so many have come through the Level Up program, and various sub-leases, and new permanent members; that way we’ve seen so much of our local community embrace the space and it’s just been amazing to see and be a part of it.Mint: The poster for this show captures former Minties staged like Da Vinci’s Last Supper, what’s the story behind that painting?
Emily: For me, it feels like the founding family of Mint. So, that was our group from that first site, in 2019; it ended within one year, I believe, six months in the front and another six months with the extension in the back. We found out, during COVID, that the landlords wanted to renovate so we ended up having a big hurrah and Steve Gorman was able to capture our last supper - it was the last supper at the site of all our dreams and happy memories, connection and art-making, and all the things that we’d been missing from our lives. And this community that came together and we were able to celebrate with a big feast before we moved on to our new home.
Mint: It’s been on display above the bar ever since. What does that painting represent to you now?Emily: It feels like our “founding fathers” portrait; it gives our journey that anchoring history. It’s a beautiful thing because it’s hard for people to fathom or necessarily understand what it’s taken to grow Mint Art House to the thriving established space that it is today. That was all grass roots and very much a labour of love and passion and time that was all off the back of the artists over the first few years, especially in terms of funding and the beautiful things that have emerged later through our partnership with the council that couldn’t have happened without the artists believing and giving so much of themselves to create the roots that it now has.
Mint: What can we expect to see displayed for the retrospective?
Emily: What we’ll see on the walls is just a testament to the rich diversity of style, practice and persona in our community when it comes to looking at what Mint Art House is. It’s really an amazing snapshot of the diversity that we bring and can enjoy around each other, from ceramics to paintings, prints and everything in between and a multimedia projection. But, it’s not just a beautiful array of retrospective artworks in the gallery, we also welcome everybody to take a tour of the working spaces themselves and get a chance to see what it looks like behind the scenes, making the process of creation visible and being able to see all the things these mysterious artists get up to and use to create these final works that we see hung on a white wall. That’s the greatest gift of Mint Art House.SEVEN YEARS OF MINT: A retrospective exhibition celebrating 2019 to 2026
Saturday, May 2, 2026
5:00 pm - 9:00 pm
Mint Art House
5/87 West Burleigh Road, Burleigh Heads, QLD, 4220, Australia
