Justin Lees – I Drank Wine Before Its Time In Brou
Opening Night: Friday, 9May 2025, 6–8pm

Q Gallery, 13a Edgar St, Ainslie ACT 2602, ACT

You are warmly invited to the opening of I Drank Wine Before Its Time, a new solo exhibition by Newcastle-based artist Justin Lees.

Developed during a residency at Château de Bouthonvilliers in rural France, this deeply personal body of work reflects on themes of distance, memory, and solitude. Painted during long, quiet nights far from home, these works echo the sensation of being alone in a crowd, and trace the soft edges between longing and stillness.

We’d love you to join us this Friday evening for drinks and a first look at this intimate and atmospheric series

I Drank Wine Before Its Time... presents a new body of work by Justin Lees, developed during his residency at Château de Bouthonvilliers in the French countryside in December 2024. The historic château, surrounded by misty fields and fading winter light, offered a place of stillness and introspection—an ideal setting for creative retreat and renewal.

While the residency was shared with other artists, Lees experienced a sense of quiet solitude that gave rise to deep personal reflection. Removed from his family and familiar surroundings, he often felt alone in a crowd, navigating the gentle ache of distance alongside the beauty of his environment. That emotional undercurrent became a central thread in the work.

These paintings explore memory, absence, and the in-between spaces of experience. Through textured surfaces, muted tones, and layered abstraction, Lees captures the suspended time and emotional ambiguity of the residency. The result is a series that sits somewhere between longing and acceptance—a meditation on presence, distance, and the quiet revelations that surface when everything else falls away.