Dru Colbert

As a studio practice I make paintings, drawings and objects that vary between studies of natural material around "the holler" to abstract paintings and prints.

​My art practice on Mount Desert Island Maine has resulted in  complex performance/installation works: "Dead End Road, “Suite Limpet”, “Flotsam” and “Graupel”.  These works conjure the past in the landscape, and mash it with events in the illusive future. They involve object making, scoring - both visual and sound, and structuring the performative event. These works have involved many in cast and crew – mostly island community members. The intensity of developing these works is interspersed with teaching, work with state and local museums, and a studio practice of drawing, painting and object making.  

​Drawing inspiration from iconic artifacts in "our Nations attic", the National Museum of American History, where I worked for a decade, Maine museums such as the Maine State Museum, the Abbe Museum and the LC Bates museum and myriad other road side attractions, sideshows, carnivals, state fairs and reliquaries world wide ....   Through painting, installation, and sculptural work, I combine curiosities, fragments of history, the documentary and the fantastic into stage settings for mysterious and personal narratives to unfold. Often, I create objects and spaces that respond critically to the display of culture.