When Art Brings Mother and Son Together

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It’s not every day that a 10-year-old gets to put up his artwork at a public art exhibition, and it’s much rarer for said kid be putting on said exhibition with his artist mother. 

At the end of 2023, that is just what Tsinghua International School (THIS) student Sebastian Droze-Moon and his mother, Augustina Droze, accomplished with “Intersections,” which just wrapped up in Toowoomba, Australia, after exhibiting to the public from Dec 13-Jan 5. Jingkids International (JKI) talks to the mother and son pair to find out how they put the whole thing together.

JKI: Please tell us a little more about “Intersections.”

Augustina: This is a culmination of my doctoral studies at the University of Southern Queensland. I am investigating how children and their artist caregivers interact and collaborate. The show highlights work from a 17-week research study that I conducted a year ago. The study followed four participant pairs of child(ren) and caregiver as they created art individually, in tandem, and collaboratively. The exhibition includes artifacts from this project as well as additional work created by myself and my son. We also made an on-site sculptural installation together.

JKI: Wow! How was the process of working together to put together an exhibition?

Sebastian: The experience was hard because I had to work with someone else who had a different opinion from me. The positive part was that I liked being recognized and noticed. Working with my mom was okay; it gave me more than two hands, so I got things done faster and tried different concepts.

Augustina: The planning of the show was more rife with obstacles than the on-site execution. I found that working spontaneously on location provided more room for creative experimentation with few distractions. Sebastian was a true partner at every step, from creation of the visual and audio components to curation and installation of the show. We envision collaborating regularly in the future, exhibiting under the moniker of “DROZEMOON,” a singular identity rather than a joint show.

JKI: How did you start Sebastian on his artistic journey?

Augustina: We have created art together for many years. Our relationship as parent/child to artist/artist has developed through a conscious commitment to mutual respect and creative recognition.

Sebastian: I have been making art for about four years. I started with clay but it took time. I am interested in sci-fi and environments. I have stopped doing clay and now I do assemblage.

JKI: What’s next for you, together and individually?

Sebastian: I am waiting for the next new thing to happen – the next big thing where I can show my artwork. In the future, I might be able to sell stuff as antiques and get some money.

Augustina: We plan to show again in the future. There are early discussions of an exhibition of DROZEMOON in India.

Sebastian is 10 years old and attends Tsinghua International School in Beijing. He is American and knows how to speak Chinese. He is interested in being a video game developer and sharing his vision of entertainment with the world.

American artist Augustina Droze (1981) investigates the interaction of humans and the natural world through colorful and rhythmic imagery. In swirling, dream-like paintings, her artwork invites the viewer to examine our relationship with the environment around us through paintings and large-scale public art.

Inspired by her life in China as an expat, Droze’s artwork integrates Eastern and Western imagery, incorporating cultural symbolism and ornamental elements of both. Her work has been exhibited in galleries and museums internationally in numerous shows, notably at the Castellani Art Museum (2014), Banaras Hindu University as Fulbright Senior Scholar India (2017), the Beijing US Embassy (2022), the Huzhou Art Museum, and the London Biennale (2023).

Images: Courtesy of Augustina Droze

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