Exhibition dates. 1 - 13 July 2025
Opening Reception : Wed 2 July 2025, 6:00 - 8:30 pm

Something from Nothing

The moment I stick my hands in the dirt of the garden I feel a connection to this world that makes me feel a belonging to something greater, well beyond my existence. Gardening anchors me to the earth, connects me to this land and opens up mysterious realms within my head that become possibilities in art making.

The plants I’ve grown have become like family members. I’ve dug them in, watered them, marvelled at them when they’ve developed new foliage or grown taller. Watched parrots come in screeching for their flowers, observed the shapes of their seedpods.
Gardening and art are creating something from nothing; a seed or a single idea come from the emptiness of space to think, lifted on the wind they come to land and become something bigger than their beginnings.

This exhibition centres around plants I’ve grown, the native birds they attract and glimpses into domestic life, travelling and the very centre of it all, the body. It’s a thank you to the universe for the flock of twenty new holland honey eaters flitting into the yard to feast on a favourite bush and for the luxury of creating treasures with my bare hands, in a world where everything is made so quickly and there is so much waste.

Christine Martin is an artist working predominantly in pen and ink, creating detailed illustrations that focus on the subject matter of native Australian birds and flowers. She extends her creative practice through screen printing, linocut and painting public murals.

Her garden forms the inspiration for much of her work with plantings of grevilleas, waxflowers, kangaroo paws and flowering gums inviting wattle birds, mudlarks, magpies and the occasional spotted pardalote in, to be watched and sketched as they feed on insects and the nectar.