MARS Gallery owner, Andy Dinan, found this space over five years ago as an old dairy, covered in pigeon droppings. She scraped them out, did it up and transformed it into the beautiful gallery space it is today, with high ceilings and floods of natural light.

MARS represents Australian and international artists both up-and-coming and mid-career so you’ll find an eclectic variety of artworks, each piece more impressive than the next. And if nothing on exhibition takes your fancy (although I’m sure it all will) then you can rummage through the large and surprisingly spacious stock room upstairs, which is always open and brimming with interesting pieces, all of them for sale.

You won’t find any pretention here. Every face you come across is smiling, whether it’s a bare-footed artist, mid-work, overalls splattered in paint or the gallery owner herself. This is one of the most welcoming galleries Melbourne has to offer with some of the most impressive artworks as well.