Stripes 4 - In the dark: Brenton Drechsler

"For my inaugural exhibition with MARS Gallery, I decided to focus on places and themes that relate to both my English heritage and the darker side of my Queer cultural experiences, both positive and negative. Safe queer spaces were important to me as I grew into my natural identity as a late teen. Finding my people on the dance floor of Adelaide’s local gay nightclub ‘The Mars Bar’ was refreshing and liberating especially after years of shyness and introverted survival, in a public secondary school. The dark immersive blanket of the Mars Bar dancefloor, especially at the back of the main dance area and the dimly lit room known as ‘The Kitchen’ was a draw card for me to exist within spaces that were filled to the brim with exciting and contradictory personalities. Extroverts and introverts alike came together in a synergised and accepting environment, to dance, socialise and be accepted, if only for a few hours. These spaces served as a platform for me to explore my sexuality without societal pressures or expectations. 

Fostering a sense of connection to place, one where I feel like I belong, has become central to my practice. I am fond of revisiting and representing places that relate to my sense of self. In the beginning of 2024, I journeyed to the United Kingdom for a self-directed residency that investigated my English heritage. My intention for this journey was to consider my mother’s side of the family and how that effects my sense of place and purpose in English and Scottish urban culture. I relish the opportunity to wander the streets of places like Edinburgh, Notting Hill, Pembridge and Cornwall and consider how foreign or familiar I feel in each setting. By inserting my stripes into each foreign place visually, I plant the seeds for a future sense of nostalgic connection, upon revisiting. The various vintage vehicles depicted speak to the toy cars I played with as a boy and my attraction to motor vehicles as a reoccurring motif. I was taught that boys play with cars and girls played with dolls. The irony of this is that I spent a decade in the fashion industry making clothes for women as an un-conscious act of rebellion.

Dark skies and a sombre colour palette are a reoccurring motif in these works which speaks to my experiences navigating my sexuality. The dark browns and umbers of my roads, windows and skies sit directly alongside a jubilant, contradictory colour palette of pinks, blues and butter yellow. This back-and-forth contrasting display of colour and vibrancy speaks to the up and down nature of being queer – as do my stripes. My green and white striped reoccurring motif acts as a kind of non-human alter ego and is ever present across my body of work. The inclusion of these stripes not only speaks to my bodily self, but the broad sense of connection and community I felt in my earlier days of coming out. My practice engages in a methodology of queer phenomenology, and I have come to see my paintings as an extension of my bodily self. Each work is built up over time in a series of layers that are often transparent, allowing the former layer to peek through. My stripes do what I am not comfortable doing myself and that is standing out, taking up space and attracting attention."

- Brenton Drechsler