[As published in May/June 2026 BayBuzz magazine.]

BayBuzz’s Lizzie Russell also owns and runs Tennyson Gallery in the Napier CBD. She’s recently packed up and moved the business after operating on the corner of Hastings and Tennyson Streets for almost a decade. To have her explain the why and what of it all, Giselle Reid asks the questions: 

GR: I’ve always thought your spot on the corner there was probably one of the best retail locations in the Bay, with huge exposure, and so easy to direct people to. How could you bear to move? 

It has certainly been a wonderfully visible position there, and not just for me and Tennyson Gallery, but for A+E Gallery before me, and Statements Gallery for fifteen years before that. 

So yes, it was a big decision to leave the corner, and not an easy one. Pretty emotional actually! But the equation hasn’t been working. The cost of doing business there, and the inevitable rises in those costs, combined with the changing behavours of shoppers and visitors … the writing was on the wall, even if i tried not to read it for the last year or two. 

Plus, ten years doing one thing, it was personally time for a change for me, so I’ve chosen to keep operating this business but to do it differently, to take the parts that I love still and leave behind the parts that have made it really tough. 

There was an external push really, and that opened my eyes to the idea of new ways of doing things, that might feel better for me. While the “glass box” there on the corner site has been great for drawing attention, it’s also sometimes felt very exposed, and customers have told me (since the move) that they felt that hard exposure while shopping or perusing too. I have often said it wasn’t always easy being in a fishbowl, and I’ve come to understand that it wasn’t always easy for visitors either. 

While a business like mine exists to sell art on behalf of artists, and to provide beautiful things for people, it’s also what i do almost every day, so it needs to feel right. 

GR: So tell us about the new space. Why there? 

While I was considering all the options for what the next phase of Tennyson Gallery might look like, I searched for commercial property for rent in the CBD and I don’t know what I was hoping for, but when I found this, my mind starting clicking. Still the corner of Tennyson Street, so the brand still makes sense, still in this neighbourhood which I feel so connected to, a seriously beautiful Art Deco Building, more space. And while the fact that it’s upstairs illicited a lot of comment in the lead-up to the move, I think there’s something special about having to put a tiny bit more effort into a visit. 

It’s 22 steps and the feeling up here is totally different. There’s a pink stained-glass ceiling on the way up! The moment I walked in to view the space, it felt right. It felt ready to layer up with beautiful things. The morning light streams in through these big generous windows, and we’re drenched in sunny warmth. The outlook at this level is remarkable, and when I saw how much wall space there was for hanging the work of our wonderful artists I could visualise it all really clearly. Why can’t a former upstairs law office be a retail gallery? Ha. 

GR: A few weeks in to the new version of Tennyson Gallery, what do you think so far? 

It’s how i hoped it would be. Visitors are much more intentional, and we’re doing more online. The website is not currently selling as it’s being rebuilt, but I’m getting more action and sales on social media as I think people are interested in the move. 

The feedback has been really positive, sometimes a little begrudgingly – some customers and visitors are quite disappointed we’re not still occupying our old corner, but find themselves happy with the new space, even if that surprises them a bit! The exhibiting artists who have visited so far are pleased too. More space and more options, and more opportunity for mini showcases and potentially exhibitions. And a physical move down the street instead of a closure – that’s certainly a positive in this current climate. 

Friends who visit say it feels like my home. We’re using furniture rather than shop fittings, I’m planning to add more soft texture to the place. There are different rooms, and chances to view artwork on a more domestic scale, and did I mention the light up here? 

I’ve noticed that visitors stay longer, take their time, they look more closely at the artwork and the jewellery. That’s the intentionality at work. Once you’re up here, you lean in to the visit. We’re having more in-depth conversations, it all feels slower and more personal. 

I’m looking forward to hosting events up here too. There’s going to be something quite chic I think, about pushing the buzzer and coming up after dark for an opening or a launch or a celebration. I’m excited for this to be a hybrid space. I think the old site was a gallery-shop hybrid. I hope this will be a gallery-studio-event-shop-showroom-etc hybrid over time.

It’s still a work in progress – perhaps it always will be, the way an art-filled home is – but it feels warm, and that’s the most important thing to me right now. It feels full and the range is still broad and varied and being added to all the time, there’s just even more room for it all. 

GR: Does this move to a different use of a building as you’ve described, seem like something we might see more of?

I hope so! Katie at Nectar is using the lobby of the Daily Telegraph building for a florist business! I love this idea that we can use inner city spaces in unexpected ways. People keep coming up this beautiful staircase and exclaiming that they’ve never been into this building before, and they’re delighted by it, and by the chance to be in it. I think Katie is finding the same thing. The Paisley Stage is now upstairs opposite Rogue Hop on Hastings Street, cult favourite italian restaurant Ilona Pasta is upstairs on Emerson Street. Everyone is celebrating the expansion and redevelopment at Vinci’s and the lovely courtyard out the back. It’s such a special CBD, with these incredible buildings, it feels fitting somehow that pockets of town offer little surprises.

GR: What do you predict in your business and in the CBD and retail in general, in the next couple of years?

I probably don’t need to repeat the oft-documented concerns about the move to online shopping and mega-malls and away from tradional retail. It’s all been said and people continue their hand-wringing, but on a more individual level, customers – people – still want unique experiences, and they still want to feel looked after. They still want a personal touch and they want to feel like they’re discovering something. It’s how I want to shop, and from the conversations I have daily, it’s how lots of visitors and locals here do too.

I have a unique business here, like so many others around me do, and we have a very unique inner-city precinct in Napier. While we can’t compete on scale or speed or size, we have a something to offer in terms of experience. 

I think while the world gets wilder and more volatile, we will continue to find value in buying produce from the local organic shop or the weekly outdoor market, getting locally-roasted coffee from a barista who knows the neighbourhood, having a drink in a bar where the conversations flit between the weather warnings and the school fundraiser, and climbing 22 steps of an iconic Art Deco building to chat about art and buy something handmade for someone you love. 

Tennyson Gallery is open in its light-filled new location in the Bowman Building. Find it on the corner of Tennyson and Market Streets, with entrance at 7 Market Street, Tuesday to Saturday from 10am to 5pm and by appointment.