apap_artprize_header

NOTE: This needs to be handled with care! The right side text has very limited space due to space restriction on very small screens like phones. This message is not public.

2025 Art Prize

Opens 2024
TBA

21. Brenton Drechsler
Title:
Looking East
Prize Status:
Emerging Artist Prize Winner
Category:
Emerging Artist
Dimensions (cm):
91h
x
122w
Medium:
Oil on Canvas
Statement:

This work depicts the main asphalt path that divides Victoria Park / Pakapakanthi, down its centre. The view faces East, towards the Adelaide Hills. The green and white stripe depicts my inhuman alter-ego, disrupting, disturbing and distorting the landscape. My alter-ego cares not for the rules of perspective or is overly fond of neat and tidy straight lines. The intention of my alter-ego is to subvert the landscape, twisting and turning its familiarity into something alternative. I do this to speak to my subjective queer experiences, in heteronormative environments. The paint is handled loosely and speaks to foggy but passionate, personal memories of this well-worn path, often at night. In my twenties, I rented a room behind The Three Benches Cafe in Dulwich, on Swift Avenue, which is a short walk from the racecourse. I also worked there, part time. My second part time job was at the Historian Hotel, on Coromandel Place, in the CBD. I used this pathway to walk, ride and sometimes run to and from, from shift to shift, 5 to 6 days a week. I felt content doing hard, honest work in hospitality - yet constantly unsettled by the experiences I faced as a Queer person, serving a predominantly conservative and heteronormative crowd. The memories of these years are good ones punctuated by less than good, yet my connection to this path is one of peace, contemplation - via walking in the fresh air - and optimism for a creative future.