It’s the town’s newest attraction and has already garnered plenty of attention, with a high level of artist support, featuring many well-known local painters as well as those from further away.

Ten years ago Julie and Tom Marshall spent a little “compulsory” time in Burra, weathered-in for a couple of days on their way to Western Australia.

They fell in love with the historic town and when an opportunity came their way to live there, they had no hesitation in making a life-changing move.

“We loved the old buildings and thought it would be a nice place to come back to,” they said.

The couple had spent a few years in North Queensland “mucking about on boats” and restored an old house in Cairns before deciding on a change from tropical living.

Some years earlier, when the Marshalls lived in Avoca, Victoria, Mrs Marshall was the coordinator of the local visitor information centre where she developed an art gallery space.

“We had always talked about opening a gallery but had no real intentions of doing anything here in Burra,” Julie said.

“But then this building (the gallery space) became available and it was an opportunity too good to miss.”

Once they had secured their venue, the Marshalls began sourcing their artists. The result is a heady mix of quality work from the Southern Finders, Yorke Peninsula and Mid North region.

“We had got to know the local artists because we had been associated with the (Burra) regional gallery and everyone was keen to put their works in,” Tom said.

“At our opening we had more paintings than we could exhibit - with almost 100 paintings for our first exhibition.”

The Uptown Gallery will have a special display for the South Australian Living Artists Festival in August featuring work celebrating the 120th anniversary of a major exhibition of Heidelberg School works, the 9x5 Impressionist Exhibition held in Melbourne in August 1889.