Chrissie Butler is a multi-instrumentalist, recording artist, illustrator, performer, and educator based in Aotearoa New Zealand. Her interdisciplinary practice moves between sound, drawing, and performance, exploring how attentive observation can deepen our relationships with place, people and memory.
Through her solo project DSLB, Chrissie creates improvised sound works using analogue electronics, acoustic instruments, voice, and found materials. Her performances emerge through listening, experimentation, and collaboration, often blurring the boundaries between composition, improvisation, and sonic storytelling.
This interest in close observation extends into her visual practice, where she creates comics and illustrations and facilitates workshops that encourage adults to reconnect with drawing and the art of noticing.
Chrissie is co-founder of skirted Records with partner in life and art, Kieran Monaghan. She also runs an online journal of her drawings at Picture this.
Video: Live performance | Selected audio | Selected drawings | Full CV
Areas of Practice
Multi-instrumentalist and sound maker|Composer and lyricist|Sound artist and recording artist | Improviser and collaborator | Illustrator and comic maker | Physical theatre performer | Workshop facilitator | Record label co-founder
Selected Projects
- DSLB (2018–present)
- Picture This online drawing archive (2020 – current)
- Mekar Bhuana Aotearoa (2022–present)
- mr sterile Assembly (2001-2024)
- Ditzy Squall (2002–2007)
- Under Lily’s Balcony (2003)
- Roadworks / Red Mole Theatre Company (2002–2006)
- Gallowglass (1995–1999)
Selected Recognition, Residencies & Commissions
- Artist-in-Residence, Ting Shuo Hear Say, Tainan, Taiwan (2025)
- Audio Foundation, Autumn Residency (2025)
- Artist-in-Residence, Driving Creek Railway, Coromandel (2023)
- Invited composer for The Sound of Seeing (CIRCUIT Artist Film and Video Aotearoa New Zealand) (2020)
- Commissioned podcast project, Pyramid Club (2023)
- Audio Culture: “10 Great New Zealand Rhythm Sections” (2022)
- Featured in Erewhon Calling: Experimental Sound in New Zealand (2012)
- Creative New Zealand Recording Grant (2010)
Selected Festivals, Screenings & Performances
- Dancing inside Your Head, Episode 32 – Chrissie Butler, by the Pyramid Club (2026)
- Outherliers Festival, Wellington (2024)
- OFFSITE: Phil Dadson Tribute, Futuna Chapel (2023)
- The Sound of Seeing, CIRCUIT Artist Film and Video Aotearoa New Zealand (2020)
- Boskovice Festival, Czech Republic (2019)
- She Shreds, Wellington Museum (2019)
- Tora! Tora! Tora! Festival (2016)
International Activity
Performances, residencies and tours throughout Taiwan, Japan, Indonesia, Malaysia, Singapore, China, Australia, South Korea, Czech Republic, Slovakia, Poland, Finland, Italy, and the United Kingdom.
Selected Recordings
- Driving Creek – DSLB (2025)
- HELLo – mr sterile Assembly (2023)
- Pass-On-Ings – DSLB (2024)
- Two Hands Twice – DSLB (2018)
- Blokebird – DSLB (2013)
- Transit – mr sterile Assembly (2011)
- Skirt – Ditzy Squall (2005)
Theatre & Performance
- This Unquiet Planet – Roadworks / Red Mole (2005)
- The (Un)Known Island: Tales of Trade – Roadworks / Red Mole (2004)
- Unbearable Journeys – Roadworks / Red Mole (2004)
- Hades’ Window – Under Lily’s Balcony (2003)
Selected Publications
skirted Records 