Your early twenties are tough times in general, and when you’re trying to make a dent in the artistic landscape they’re particularly trying. You’ve probably just spent four years racking up a $30,000 student loan, the competition seems to be no less intense than it would have been if you hadn’t done so, and your dent looks more like a scratch made with a butter knife. 

Unless you’re Lauren Biedrzycki. By the ripe old age of 22 Lauren has renounced her position as co-owner of Melbourne’s gritty-cool Gorker Gallery and is now in the process of launching a fresh multi-faceted art project. Colour By Numbers Gallery is the newfangled brainchild, and aims to support emerging and established both locally and overseas. With no fixed address, the gallery will hold a different pop-up exhibition every two weeks at various locations around inner city Sydney and Melbourne.

Colour By Numbers’ focus on supporting local emerging artists alongside established overseas ones has already found its young innovator many supporters. Gorker favourite Ben Frost is among those, as are 30-something other artists from Australia and overseas who donated works for last Thursday’s fundraising campaign, Up Close. Biedrzycki might be the envy of all those 20-somethings still trying to tap into their own creative calling, but let’s face it — to open up an art gallery you need a little fiscal support as well as a good head on your shoulders. The rest of the obscenely talented line-up of artists helping Colour By Numbers open its doors included lowbrow and street favourites Drewfunk, Rone, Makatron and Twoone, and those came along to Up Close were also treated to live painting by Deb — street art’s glamourous femme fatale, who’s tattooed heroines have previously graced the walls of The Record Store Surry Hills, Rose Street Artist Market Fitzroy and Union Lane Project Melbourne.

Clearly Colour By Numbers doesn’t follow the standard business model. When you’re spanning the genres of live art, lowbrow, contemporary, graffiti, photography and film, that’s probably a bit difficult. Many artists won’t even be exhibiting in the actually gallery space at all, but will rather have their works displayed on its web-based subdivision Colour By Numbers Walls — which addresses the slight complication of moving an entire concrete building in to an art space to exhibit a work of graffiti. Instead artwork will be uploaded to the website, allowing people to search and commission artists to paint murals.

With so much fresh talent behind it and so many crafty ideas at the head, Colour By Numbers is one clever kid. We reckon we won’t be the only ones following its every move when it pops up next Month.