When Cassandra Bird was a girl, she loved hanging out on weekends in the art gallery run by a great aunt in Newcastle. Her aunt would throw lavish lunches, bringing curators together with artists like Margaret Olley and Charles Blackman. She published art books and cheekily declared that Newcastle was “the art capital of Australia”. “I remember sitting in the gallery thinking to myself, imagine you can have a life surrounded by all these interesting people,” recalls Bird. “I dreamed of having a life like that. She gave me that window.”

Bird, 42, has built a career and now a business from that dream, having just opened her own gallery in Sydney’s Kings Cross. Her opening exhibition featured works by Janet Laurence and Atong Atem – two of Australia’s most sought-after artists. The Cassandra Bird gallery might be brand new, but Bird’s contacts are top tier, forged from four years working in galleries in Berlin and then a decade with Australia’s contemporary art supremo, Roslyn Oxley.