After 28 years of running one of Vancouver’s most celebrated art galleries, owner Diane Farris is closing her eponymous space at the end of April. An expiring lease, more than two years of major neighbourhood construction, and the effects of the economic recession on the art industry amounted to good timing for Farris.

"It got to me that I was almost 70, I was working seven days a week, the economy’s the pits, and I was in a position to retire, plus I could go on and do other things,” Farris said in a phone interview with the Georgia Straight. “I gradually came to the conclusion that it would be a beautiful thing to do."

Farris started her career in visual arts by opening a space in Gastown after having found that she naturally had a good eye for visual arts, particularly paintings. “I was just delighted when I found that when I was excited about something, it seemed to be good, and then I learned it was called having a good eye,” Farris said. “When I would see things, my heart would just start to pound, and I’d just think, ”˜Oh, I’m sure that’s good.’ Over time, it would be proven that I did have an ability to do that.”

It was not long before Farris quickly became known for nurturing the talents of young artists such as Angela Grossmann, Attila Richard Lukacs, and Graham Gilmore, and taking a particular interest in students emerging from what is now Emily Carr University of Art and Design. “Skulking around Emily Carr at night, I would suddenly stop dead in my tracks and discover a Jesse Garbe, and go, ”˜Oh my god, who’s that?’” Farris said. “Certainly, the early artists, Attila and Angela, they were painting huge sloppy expressionist wonderful aggressive things, and it was just like nothing I had ever seen before, so it seemed like a whole new thing.”

By the time she moved her gallery to its current South Granville location, Farris had also begun her involvement with many charitable organizations, including the W.I.S.H. Drop-In Centre and the B.C. Brain Injury Agency. Farris’s gallery space also became a fundraising hotspot for other arts organizations such as the Vancouver Opera and the Vancouver Symphony Orchestra.

With nearly 30 years as a gallery owner, Farris said that it’s the proliferation of artists and the emergence of alternate art spaces, including events such as the Eastside Culture Crawl, that have really shifted the landscape of the visual-arts community. “I think a lot of artists are also representing themselves and that’s a good thing,” she said. “They do a good job of it, and some of them, because of the nature of their work, it’s a better way for them to earn a living if there’s huge expenses involved in making the work.”

One thing that Farris is hoping to see changed is the amount of support that artists receive from the government. “I think people have to realize that if you look at the facts and figures, art is a very good thing,” she said. “It was horrible when the government cut back on the arts funding from the lottery and things like that. It’s just so upsetting because it’s not just people standing in their studio painting, it’s people who make the paints and supply the materials, and there’s a lot of the economy that goes into making art.”

The gallery’s final exhibit features the Canadian landscape paintings of Elzbieta Krawecka, which opens tomorrow (March 3). Farris’s successful online gallery, which was the first of its kind in the world when it launched in 1996, will remain open and continue to evolve.

“It’s a changing world and I think online is a way that a lot people are going to go,” Farris said. “I was right in on it at the beginning, and I’d like to do something new and exciting again. The configuration of artists will change. I don’t want to talk too much about some of the things we have in mind, but I’m excited.”