EMERGING artist Rachel Corsini is exceeding exceedingly fortunate.

For not only was she born with a lively creative imagination, but with a bit of help from her friends, she is now holding her first solo exhibition in a sophisticated new pop-up gallery right near the Civic merry-go-round.

Previously asked participants in group shows at Canberra School of Art, Lava cafe, PhotoAccess’s Huw Davies Gallery and the Contemporary Art Space Wollongong, Corsini is usually associated with photography. In 2012 she was a photo competition winner for Australian Photography + Digital Magazine.

Her exhibition, “it’s a fine line,” comprises 15 paintings, mostly of large format and three sets of photographic artworks; all are for sale. As well, to enhance the look of the exhibition, she is exhibiting a whimsical series of creations in which she reveals her philosophy of seeing “beauty in little things,” shown in a wall installation of tiny ‘hats’ made of everyday objects. Those are not for sale.

The Gallery, resplendent in white walls and a hipster-style treatment of the floors, was the brainchild of local art-lover Alfredo Lango, an admirer of Corsini’s work who applied to Canberra CBD for one of its recently-advertised grants aimed at bringing life to empty shopfronts.

It’s the first time he’s done anything like this and it took a while to negotiate with the owner and cover public liability responsibilities before he could bring the space to life – it’s been vacant for nine months.

Corsini helped in setting up the gallery too, creating small decorative objects from building offcuts.

Growing up in rural New South Wales, she came here as a teenager, and now works with children with special needs. She looks back on the life in the country with affection, saying “life was simple, uncomplicated and unmanipulated…we make things out of what we had around us simply by using our imagination.”

With this in mind, she has created some of the works out of simple things – garden peas and a red onion rendered in photographic form, for instance, or, in a more disturbing set of photographs titled “Beautiful Anxiety,” a beautiful but horrifying image of a razor blade steeped in what looks like blood.

A playfully-titled set of photographs, “A little journey x 3”, sees Corsini, overlaying the photographic image with a tiny little painted zebra.

For the larger part “It’s a fine line” consists of fine-line paintings on large expanses of white. Here, although the theme of finding beauty in ordinary things is continued in works like “Barbed wire” or “Stinging nettle,” Corsini users delicate lines and paint to explore the world of insomnia and disturbed dreams, .

This is largely successful, although she achieves the greatest effect in her smaller, more abstract pieces.

While the exhibition only continues until the end of the month, Lango is now considering his options – his gallery and the exhibition both help brighten up the environment of downtown daytime Civic.

Rachel Corsini, “It’ a fine line”, in the popup gallery next to the merry-go-round – follow the chalk signs to Shop 5, Petrie Plaza, until August 30.