INGALLERY.1 and ONLINE
04 February – 26 March 2023
Christine Druitt Preston: Still A Stilled Life.
‘Still a Stilled Life’ is a re-interpretation of my 2022 solo exhibition A Stilled Life, shown at Hazelhurst Art Centre as part of Quintet – 5 Solos.
“My artwork explores themes related to domestic interiors and gardens. The enforced period of lockdown in 2021, and the seemingly never-ending wet weather that followed well into 2022 covered the period I had set aside to make work for this project. Rather than seeing this time of containment an obstacle, I sought to take the opportunity to develop a new way of informing my practice. Until now, drawings made in direct response to place have been the foundation stone of my image making.
The well documented history of Hazelhurst cottage, built by Ben and Hazel Broadhurst in 1945, and its extensive garden in Gymea gave me a new focus. With work drawing on the past domestic life of Hazelhurst, my home, and Hazelhurst today.
Elements of the exhibition recall with nostalgia domestic life of the late 1940’s and 50’s – the post war period with its focus on modernity and the place of Australian women, like Hazel and my own mother in the home.
The shirt-making company that was established by Ben’s father, John Preston Broadhurst, inherited by Ben in 1936 is recalled, with shirts for Ben and his brothers Maurice and Jack. The ghostly appearance of two of the shirts reference Ben’s interest in psychic phenomena and his belief that he was in regular contact with the spirit world and his brothers who were both killed in action during WW1.
Sheer panels place appropriated images of children sourced from vintage colouring in books in an imagined Hazelhurst garden. Here the Broadhurst children play alongside the children we can see enjoying the playground of the Hazelhurst Art Centre of today.
‘Still A Stilled Life” hopes to provide the audience with a new lens through which to experience the known.
The exhibition title acknowledges the bequest made by Ben and Hazel Broadhurst of their home Hazelhurst to the community and is borrowed from the poem ‘Afterwards’ by Thomas Hardy – a contemplation on how the world goes on after one’s death.” ~ Christine Druitt Preston, January 2023.
Featured work
