Christine Chester - A Retrospective
This exhibition celebrates the work of Christine Chester (1960-2023), showing the progression of an artist who embraced the challenge of blending traditional approaches with new media to create contemporary artworks.
Her work won prizes, was selected for Quilt National and the Fine Art Textile Awards and demonstrates Christine’s rigorous critical thinking and excellence of technique. he content of Christine’s work was important to her and as a generous and passionate educator with her own teaching studio (Studio 11), she encouraged her students to find depth in their work and practice.
Christine; we love you, honour you and celebrate your contribution to art textiles.
Claire Benn & Karina Thompson, 2024
Her work won her prizes in the 2000s; was shown within the Fine Art Textile Awards (2019 & 2021); and at Quilt National in the USA (2013). The body of work produced during her M.A. in Art and Design at Brighton University, and until her death in 2023, demonstrate Christine’s rigorous critical thinking and excellence of technique.
As a feminist, the role of women in history continues the theme of absence through the exploration of the general anonymity and invisibility of our female ancestors, who developed the techniques and patterns now commonplace in textile processes. Collaboration was also an integral aspect of Christine’s practice. She co-founded the UN Fold textile group, helping to devise the collaborative piece ‘Far from Equal’. Produced during the constraints of the pandemic, it was shortlisted for the Fine Art Textile Award in 2021.
