Janet McAllister: Flash that cash to keep art rebels yelling

High Fives exhibition at the High Seas Gallery. Photo / Supplied.

I didn't mean to be late to the opening of the closing exhibition at the High Seas. I like the High Seas. I like that they make my walk to work more interesting by advertising their exhibitions to us riff raff/general public with street posters. I like that they show the (non-commissioned) work of illustrators and comic artists - usually described as the "commercial" end of the art spectrum as if mainstream dealer galleries didn't have to make money.

I like that much of their art is priced between $100 and $300 and sometimes lower, and that they also sell zines for less than a cup of coffee. I like that they sell books, records and T-shirts, including a few which artist Andrew McLeod designed for his bands. I like their opening parties: sometimes cupcakes or sausages, and always smokers in their best hipster togs - check shirts, stovepipe jeans, pretty dresses - spilling out on to Beresford Square.

In short, I like the High Seas' accessibility. So it is a great pity that, after 18 months, the lease is up and the pop-up shop is down, and the High Fives group show - which includes graphic novelist Dylan Horrocks - is to be their last. I'm not the only one who thinks so but, as co-owner Sophie Oiseau comments drily, many of the punters don't seem to have linked the closure with their not buying anything. It doesn't matter how much you're adding to local culture, funding is hard to get if you're running an ostensibly commercial operation.

But morale among sailors is high with the Christmas closing sale until December 24, the gallery's "Capsize" party at the Wine Cellar/Whammy Bar this Friday, and next year Oiseau is planning to take flight overseas.

The reason I was late? I took a detour down La Gonda Arcade on Karangahape Rd to discover Rebel Yell, a 4-month-old, proudly "lowbrow" gallery. Like High Seas, Rebel Yell is priced accessibly and focuses on figurative art. But this isn't a simple case of one starlet rising as another fades; the galleries' niches overlap but aren't the same.

High Seas teeters between ethereal and ironic; Rebel Yell is grittier: it's hotrods and horror - you can buy $5 recycled bags stencilled with the Bride of Frankenstein.

Owner and skateboarder Stacey Roper spent her childhood painting pictures of her brothers' matchbox cars on the backs of old calendars.

"I was always into stock cars; my parents were bogans," she says. "I wasn't allowed to study art; they said, 'Get a trade'." But when one of her bleeding heart tattoo illustrations ended up on a Listener cover, her parents showed all their friends.

There's a Pacman arcade game at Rebel Yell that you can play for free, beside the two-headed, three-legged doll for sale. Roper wants people to feel they can hang out here.

Hopefully those people take the High Seas lesson to heart and spend some money to keep the rebels yelling.