Acclaimed Australian artist displays first Irish exhibition in Mayo
Intimate, delicate and beautiful, Christine Prescott’s exhibition in Westport is a must-see.
‘Rites of Homing’, an exhibition of work by artist Christine Prescott, opened earlier this month at the Custom House Studios and Gallery, Westport. As the sun flooded through the landmark building’s generous windows, the huge crowd at the opening absorbed what is a truly stunning collection of art.
Born in rural southwest Queensland, Australia, Prescott is a postgraduate of fine art at the University of Melbourne, specialising in textile and sculpture. She moved to Westport 20 years ago, where she continued her practice. She has been an artist-in-residence at the Custom House Studios for the past three years. While she has had solo shows in Australia and has exhibited widely throughout Indonesia, Singapore, Germany and Ireland, ‘Rites of Homecoming’ is Prescott’s first solo exhibition in this country.
Themes
And what an extraordinary exhibition it is. Prescott explores themes of migration, memory, place and connection using a range natural materials and repetitive, ritualistic handcrafting processes, such as gathering, weaving and mark making. The show’s accompanying guide states that her work ‘traverses the emotional and ecological distance between the semi-arid plains of Australia and the rain-rich island of Ireland’. Each of the pieces feels meditative – every stitch, knot, twist and placement intentional, respectful of the material and the meaning with which it is imbued.
Prescott explains that the artworks were born of a search for places of nurture and nourishment in a new environment: “In an unfamiliar landscape, where is it that I can find places that I feel safe, that I feel held by, that I feel nourished by?”
During that search, the artist found herself drawn to materials that ‘have an echo of memory’ about where she comes from. “For example, there are pieces that I make out of spruce bark, which I was originally drawn to because it was so much like cracked mud. After the rains [in Australia] the puddles would dry up and leave these pieces of cracked mud that would be so smooth… we’d pick them up and imagine they were chocolate when we were kids. So, any of the materials that I’ve used in this exhibition give me some kind of sensory feedback, some sort of comfort.”
Many of the artworks feel impossibly delicate, such as ‘Let’s Dance’, a sculpture made of ivy wood and esparto grass, a material that has been used in weaving for millennia. Suspended from the ceiling, it sways and turns as though beckoning the viewer to join in its eternal, ethereal dance. ‘Linger, Longing Still’ and ‘Lull’ are both comprised of fragile papery garlic skins strung on strands of hair, each strand dangling from a needle. The effect is somehow extremely moving.
Large-scale pieces
Also included are several large-scale pieces made using red wine on Fabriano paper. Here, Prescott’s repetitive mark making creates subtle multi-tonal forms as intricate as clouds of foam. The longer the viewer takes to contemplate these astounding pieces, the more mesmeric the works become.
Wood and bark feature prominently throughout, bringing to mind the Australian gum tree, which sheds its bark rather than its leaves. ‘Find Something to Love’ is a roughly metre-tall circular piece created from carefully peeled strips of willow bark sewn together with cotton thread. Close by stands ‘Skinned’, an arrangement of the willow branches that were stripped to yield the bark.
Another piece, ‘Shed’, features peeled willow wrapped in shed snakeskin, while spruce bark forms the core of ‘Shingleback Creek’ and ‘Tracks’, both of which evoke patterns of arid, cracked earth.
Prescott also works with soft reeds, meticulously braiding and weaving them together to form thought-provoking ‘poetic sculptural assemblages’. These reed pieces exude nurturing and care. ‘Lay Me Down in Pastures Green and Fair’ features reeds woven together to make a fragrant pillowcase, while ‘Cradle’ contains coiled willow bark slung protectively in soft reed. In ‘Nestle’, emu feathers are tucked into a reed basket held aloft by ivy wood.
Official opening
‘Rites of Homing’ was officially opened on July 9 by Alannah Robins, founder and director of Interface Inagh, an artists’ studio and residency programme in Connemara. Describing the body of work as ‘absolutely stunning’, Robins said: “When I came into the gallery today, it took my breath away… The exhibition is a very, very beautiful, tactile and sensual dialogue about searching for a home after coming from a very dry place to this very wet place.”
Robins also rightly made special mention of how the work is presented in the gallery: “So beautifully hung, with so much space and wall and light, and such intention behind the hanging of each piece, it really honours the work.”
It is impossible to walk away from this exhibition untouched. It is a deeply personal meditation on longing and belonging, an homage to the healing power of the familiar and an exquisite ode to the natural world and its many forms.
‘Rites of Homing’, an exhibition of work by Christine Prescott, continues in the Custom House Studios and Gallery, Westport, until August 9.