INGALLERY.1 and ONLINE
05 – 27 February 2022
Christine Druitt Preston: Once in a blue moon.
A blue moon is the term commonly used for a second full moon that occasionally appears in a single month of our solar-based calendars. Poetically it refers to something that is extremely rare, a precious moment.
My first solo exhibition at Artsite Contemporary has given me the privilege of seeing sixteen of my works in a new context, as it draws together artworks from 2018 through 2021. An opportunity made more special, given our current climate of uncertainty and, in this context, Once in a Blue Moon seemed an appropriate title for this exhibition.
My artmaking is in response to domestic spaces and the gardens people create as sanctuaries from their otherwise busy worlds. My habit of drawing in small concertina artist books, lies at the heart of my practice, and this exhibition brings together four bodies of my work: Rosebank, Gulgamree – Mudgee; The Margaret Olley studio re-creation, Tweed Regional Gallery and My place.
‘The garden calls – Emerson Road’, is a literal solar print translation of a section of one of these books. Whether making marks with a fine tip pen, manipulating a lino cutting blade or sewing a line by hand or machine, in my mind I am always drawing.
These sketchbooks inform each of my series of Lino-block prints, and unique mixed media works.
The unique prints seen in this exhibition are developed from my original Lino-blocks.
My practice of reworking found vintage domestic textiles serves to acknowledge the ‘once known’ original makers on whose shoulders I stand, in giving their work a second life. A flight of fancy (with a nod to Henri), combines found vintage pieces, fragments of my Lino block prints and tulle with added hand embroidery in a fanciful willow pattern inspired landscape visited by Matisse bathers. Don’t forget your hankie – Summer, integrates Lino block print, with embroidered drawing on a ladies’ linen handkerchief previously owned by my grandmother, its crochet edge worked by her.
Made at my dining room table, my practice acknowledges the lineage of women artists, like Margaret Olley, whose art responded to the domestic interiors, that also served as their studios. ~ Christine Druitt Preston 2022.
Christine Druitt Preston’s prints are held in Australian & International Public Collections including:
Coffs Harbour Regional Gallery, NSW.
Brooklyn Art Library, Brooklyn, NY, USA.
Tweed Regional Gallery & Margaret Olley Centre Collection, NSW
Bathurst Regional Gallery, NSW.
The State University of New York, NY, USA.
Alfred University, NY, USA.
