MARS Gallery is delighted to present The Huxleys at Minor Attractions, 2026! Hosted at The Mandrake Hotel, London, Minor Attractions is an art fair of exciting, daring work that creates a space where art and nightlife meet. The Huxleys' portrait Magick Maali will fly across the world to be included in the Single Works Section of the Fair.
Artist Statement—Magick Maali
In 1697, when Europeans first 'visited' the Swan River in Western Australia, they refused to believe what they saw: a swan as black as the water beneath it, when all they could imagine was the beauty of the white swans they were used to. Black Swan Theory was born from that refusal—proof that disbelief doesn't make a thing less real, only less seen.
First Nations people met the same refusal. Their sovereignty, their unbroken connection to this land, dismissed by those who'd already decided what could and couldn't exist here. Queer people learned to live inside that refusal too; folding ourselves into shadow for generations, not because we were rare, but because the world made hiding the price of safety.
This portrait is a homecoming. A tribute to Western Australia, where Will grew up under the same skies that birthed the myth, and an honouring of Garrett's First Nations heritage—beauty that was always there, never missing, only denied. The haze that surrounds them is reminiscent of the ritual of queer dance floors, sacred spaces for safety over the years. Two queer swans drift together across a 'lake' lit gold with that same haze: visible now, luminous, exactly as rare and exactly as real as they always were.
