Make your way up to Nobbys Lighthouse any weekend before November, and you'll find an eclectic mix of expressions in each room of the main cottage.
Ghoulish photography, watercolours and handwoven pieces, each work is different, but all offer a perspective on Australian gothic.
The exhibition is made up of 17 local artists who are in the loosely formed and welcoming Castle Arts Collective.
The Australian gothic concept started when they began making art in local parks.
Artists and friends Lucy Egan and Estelle Leishman were messaging each other, lamenting the lack of opportunities artists like themselves had.
It was hard, especially if you were financially lacking, had a disability or didn't have a contact already in the art scene.
"But we decided instead of whinging about it and feeling sorry for ourselves, we'll do something," Leishman says.
"So we made a group chat, and we named it Newcastle Art Besties."
From there groups of friends would meet up in public places like duck parks, reserves and the Hunter Wetlands. It was their solution for not having studios and a way to meet artists regularly.
While they call themselves artists, everyone is invited to join the group. For example, Leishman's hairdresser is in it.
Ecologists, science communicators and natural history illustrators have gravitated to the group as well.
They all got to know each other through the meet-ups, and then the Australian Gothic was born.
"It's that idea of the uncanny and that meeting place, and also that collision of colonialism and kind of contemporary Australia as well, different ideas of history," Castle Arts Collective artist Lucy Egan says.
Leishman thought the concept would be a great exhibition but decided to start small. They began with a zine, and artist Madeline Prior helped them put it together.
Artist Tallulah Cunningham invited them to use her studio to make it happen.
They laughed about how they printed out zines on their university printing card, eager to get them into the world before Halloween last year. And it proved to be internationally popular with orders from across the globe.
Australian Gothic was a winner and gave them the confidence to try for an exhibition.
Several members of the Castle Arts Collective had previously completed residencies at Nobbys Lighthouse. When the lighthouse called for expressions of interest, they approached.
None of them had done an exhibition before, and excitingly, it was approved, just in time for Halloween again.
Egan has a collage with poetry and an embroidery piece in the exhibition.
"They're mixed media works, and they're looking at the idea of home and country. So it's the idea of ghost houses," she says.
Leishman's artwork is called Bypass(ed) in collaboration with Gill, who was consulted during the creation of the Jesmond section of the Newcastle Inner City Bypass.
Gill was one of a group of ecologists who were opposed to the construction of the bypass. Their collective painting and poetry speak to this.
Gill was asked to do targeted, powerful owl surveys because she knew there was an active breeding pair in the area. The survey was under a time crunch for the developers because they wanted to start clearing.
"We had a week of survey, hoping to find them," Gill says. "We were stationed at their breeding tree, but they weren't present.
"As a result of that one survey, because they weren't present at the current moment, the [results were] that the impact wouldn't be significant."
A week later she got a message from a friend who worked for the construction company saying they'd found a dead owl. Gill went to see it and saw it was a female.
Devastated, she and Leishman decided to make a work about it.
And Gill not only quit her job but also decided to leave the field. She likes the title "gone from ecologist to full-time artist in a phase of capitalism".
She thinks their work is quite Australian gothic.
"It very much fits under that theme with that stark contrast of raw nature landscape and how it's meant to be and the juxtaposition with human life development," Gill says.
The free exhibition is on until November 1. It's open 10am to 4pm Saturday and Sunday.
