Dubbo watercolour artist Stuart D. Vorias is preparing to turn The Vault Orana community co-working space into a working art gallery next month when it hosts an exhibition of his works and himself as artist-in-residence.

Appropriately named “StuArt”, the exhibition will run from September 10-30 and will showcase the talented artist’s collection of work, especially native birds, animals which will also be for sale.

Stuart, a former nurse, will donate 10 per cent of each artwork sold during the exhibition to support the Western Cancer Centre in Dubbo – something close to his heart.

The idea for Stuart to spend the period of the exhibition as artist-in-residence was supported by The Vault Orana, and will give centre users and visitors a unique opportunity to observe the artist at work and talk to him about his work and his processes.

“I spoke to the manager and asked, ‘Is there a possibility to actually paint there so I can talk to the people about my artwork?’ and they were very happy for me to do that,” Stuart told Dubbo Photo News. He will be onsite between 9am and 4pm during the exhibition.

It’s not the first time Stuart will have undertaken an artist-in-residence post while exhibiting his work. The Fresh Arts Inc and Wellington Arts member has done this previously at the Royal Flying Doctor Service Visitor Experience centre in Dubbo, and found people to be very interested in observing him at work and buying his artworks.

Next month’s exhibition will be Stuart’s fourth solo event and he is looking forward to it, with plans to do another one the following month.

"I'm doing another one again at the Flying Doctor Visitors Experience centre on the long weekend in October, raising money for the Flying Doctors," he said.

The quietly spoken artist’s interest in art began as a young boy when he began drawing political cartoons, aged seven, but took a back seat when he was older and training and then later working as a surgical dresser and nurse.

Some of his work is displayed in the Western Cancer Centre, and he is looking forward to being able to donate funds to the centre from the sale of his works at next month’s exhibition.

Opening night of the StuArt exhibition takes place on Thursday, September 10, from 5.30pm at The Vault Orana in Wingewarra St (former CWA rooms), and the community is invited to attend the free event. RSVP for the opening night is essential to attend, and tickets are available at www.events.humanitix.com/stuart-the-vault.